Sima Dahl's presentation on personal branding was extremely important for all professionals. It served as a great reminder that we all need to be constantly aware of what our brand looks like to anyone at anytime. With the tools of Social Media and the speed of technology, our brand can be built or destroyed in incremental messages. A post on Facebook, neglect on Twitter, or inactivity in LinkedIn can make or break a personal brand.
Just 5 minutes a day on LinkedIn to reach out to someone, leave a comment, update a profile goes far in building a personal brand. That's easy enough to remember and easy enough to do. It's already become my mantra. I'm checking Twitter more often and seeing what content I can retweet, reply, or create. Just 5 minutes. I now check on Facebook, but I've been more careful of what I post there due to their not so private policy. Which leads me to Google + . If only I could get more friends to use this.
My little project is to create a Presume or a Slideshare as part of my resume and career search tool. I will be posting this on my LinkedIn. It something that conveys a couple of messages: Darlene is skilled and aware of Social Media tools, she's up to date on the latest tools, she's creative, and has a fresh approach. That should be a more interesting approach for recruiters.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Googling
I love Google. Always have. Always will. I can say that with all confidence because they will always innovate and keep it fresh. Right now, I'm trying to get more friends to use Google + because FB just scares me with their privacy invasive and pervasive terms. It would also be nice to have just one place to go and one place to track my activities.
This week we watched Ted Talks presentation with Google founders Sergei and Larry. It's interesting how they have attributed their entrepreneurial philosophy and work atmosphere to their Montessori style schooling. This makes it a cornerstone of their company's personality, which in turn will keep them innovating and exploring. Is it necessary to their culture to have 20% of workers time available for exploration? I believe so. As professionals, we rarely close the door and walk away at 5PM, often times we relate our personal times to our work in some indirect way, and sometimes directly. To designate a set time at work to explore something a worker would love to explore will only insure they will keep their work in their thoughts after 5PM. Each of us is a whole unit, not bits and pieces held together with one body.
Comparing some of the Social Media tools, I found Google + would be nice if I could get more of my friends to switch. Google Hangouts is also nicer than Skype, which I have used for years. I never liked the way Skype is warbly and drops calls all the time. Free was the only benefit to using Skype. I didn't like Prezi, it takes too much time to get used to, and it's not fun to watch with the zooming in and out.
This week we watched Ted Talks presentation with Google founders Sergei and Larry. It's interesting how they have attributed their entrepreneurial philosophy and work atmosphere to their Montessori style schooling. This makes it a cornerstone of their company's personality, which in turn will keep them innovating and exploring. Is it necessary to their culture to have 20% of workers time available for exploration? I believe so. As professionals, we rarely close the door and walk away at 5PM, often times we relate our personal times to our work in some indirect way, and sometimes directly. To designate a set time at work to explore something a worker would love to explore will only insure they will keep their work in their thoughts after 5PM. Each of us is a whole unit, not bits and pieces held together with one body.
Comparing some of the Social Media tools, I found Google + would be nice if I could get more of my friends to switch. Google Hangouts is also nicer than Skype, which I have used for years. I never liked the way Skype is warbly and drops calls all the time. Free was the only benefit to using Skype. I didn't like Prezi, it takes too much time to get used to, and it's not fun to watch with the zooming in and out.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Cisco's Social Media
I had a fascinating interview with Kevin Petschow,
He provided some excellent Cisco sources to reference for my interview. Cisco has a whole website full of Social Media information. It's very generously filled with blogs, links to their Twitter, Facebook, YouTube pages, but more importantly it also has quite a bit of information on social media itself. Coming from a social media award winning company who has been engaged in this since 2007, the information is a treasure trove of tips and guidelines.
The underlying lesson is to keep the audience engaged, often, predictably, and in various mediums. Listen to them, respond, provide worthwhile content, and stay in touch. While they have a whole team of professional content developers, as well as executives that write some of the blogs, the important thing is that they are constantly engaged with their audience. Not every business has the breadth of resources available to them, but they do have a few minutes throughout the day to tweet, touch base with someone on LinkedIn, "like" a posting on Facebook, dash off a few lines on a blog with a picture, and maybe a quick YouTube tip of the week. Who knows? Someone may be watching and feel compelled to engage the company even further, maybe buy something or refer business to them. The important thing is to stay in touch on a regular basis.
I will keep checking on Cisco's social media page to see what lessons they have to share as social media becomes ever more important in the world of commerce.
He provided some excellent Cisco sources to reference for my interview. Cisco has a whole website full of Social Media information. It's very generously filled with blogs, links to their Twitter, Facebook, YouTube pages, but more importantly it also has quite a bit of information on social media itself. Coming from a social media award winning company who has been engaged in this since 2007, the information is a treasure trove of tips and guidelines.
The underlying lesson is to keep the audience engaged, often, predictably, and in various mediums. Listen to them, respond, provide worthwhile content, and stay in touch. While they have a whole team of professional content developers, as well as executives that write some of the blogs, the important thing is that they are constantly engaged with their audience. Not every business has the breadth of resources available to them, but they do have a few minutes throughout the day to tweet, touch base with someone on LinkedIn, "like" a posting on Facebook, dash off a few lines on a blog with a picture, and maybe a quick YouTube tip of the week. Who knows? Someone may be watching and feel compelled to engage the company even further, maybe buy something or refer business to them. The important thing is to stay in touch on a regular basis.
I will keep checking on Cisco's social media page to see what lessons they have to share as social media becomes ever more important in the world of commerce.
Friday, July 20, 2012
21st Century Resume, Presume
Hannah Phan landed a job by exercising creativity, initiative, and a bit of social media know how. She had been searching for a job for awhile and found Sliderocket to be an up and coming company. She used their product to create a resume, then tweeted it to the CMO of Sliderocket. he receives it as he is disembarking from a plane, and tweets back to her immediately that they need to talk. When they do meet, Hannah is offered a job, and she heads up a new product using Sliderocket, Presume. See the link below for her blog and her Presume: http://bit.ly/n3oAN1
When I saw this, I understand why the CMO was blown away. It was a clever use of the product, it conveyed a message : Hannah Phan is talented, creative, smart, and has initiative. Wait a minute, me too! I think Sliderocket might just be for me. So my plans this weekend are to update my resume, see what can be incorporated into a Sliderocket Presume, post my Presume on LinkedIn. Apparently Sliderocket also tracks metrics of how often your presume has been reviewed. That fulfills a missing link in job search. No one really knows how often your resume is actually reviewed. I like that feature. I wonder how I can incorporate this into an automated "Talent Acquisition" system. Probably as an attachment after filling out the usual form. Would they actually open it and look? Probably not, but someone might catch this if I posted it on my profile in LinkedIn.
Sliderocket has 3 templates on their site. I'll play with the one I feel best fits my situation now, the one for the new MBA, graduate student, and I might build one for the professional Presume.
Here's a YouTube demonstration of how to use SlideRocket: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0jqGlx9x8Y&feature=youtu.be
Note that SlideRocket has 35 videos on YouTube, making learning more about the capabilities of their product easy to learn, and share. I'm thinking of several people that need to know about this. But first me. I need to see what my new Presume will be like.
When I saw this, I understand why the CMO was blown away. It was a clever use of the product, it conveyed a message : Hannah Phan is talented, creative, smart, and has initiative. Wait a minute, me too! I think Sliderocket might just be for me. So my plans this weekend are to update my resume, see what can be incorporated into a Sliderocket Presume, post my Presume on LinkedIn. Apparently Sliderocket also tracks metrics of how often your presume has been reviewed. That fulfills a missing link in job search. No one really knows how often your resume is actually reviewed. I like that feature. I wonder how I can incorporate this into an automated "Talent Acquisition" system. Probably as an attachment after filling out the usual form. Would they actually open it and look? Probably not, but someone might catch this if I posted it on my profile in LinkedIn.
Sliderocket has 3 templates on their site. I'll play with the one I feel best fits my situation now, the one for the new MBA, graduate student, and I might build one for the professional Presume.
Here's a YouTube demonstration of how to use SlideRocket: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0jqGlx9x8Y&feature=youtu.be
Note that SlideRocket has 35 videos on YouTube, making learning more about the capabilities of their product easy to learn, and share. I'm thinking of several people that need to know about this. But first me. I need to see what my new Presume will be like.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Condoleezza Rice - Former Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice - Former Secretary of State
The online publisher "The Little Pink Book" sends emails and posts articles on Facebook. I came across this article on Facebook.
Regardless of her politics, whether you voted for her boss or not, she is is a woman worth listening to and watching. In this article she describes the hurdles of race and gender that she overcame and how she prevailed by "being twice as good." She briefly described her upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama and her philosophy on women becoming empowered. This story should be shared with our daughters.
The online publisher "The Little Pink Book" sends emails and posts articles on Facebook. I came across this article on Facebook.
Regardless of her politics, whether you voted for her boss or not, she is is a woman worth listening to and watching. In this article she describes the hurdles of race and gender that she overcame and how she prevailed by "being twice as good." She briefly described her upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama and her philosophy on women becoming empowered. This story should be shared with our daughters.
Friday, July 13, 2012
"Damage Control" vs. fixing the problem
Politicians and companies have to remove those two words from their vocabulary and mindset. They have to stop letting PR folks run the situation and put real strategists and really bright managers in place to fix a highly visible situation. Yeah, I know it sounds so cool to use two word sound bites to convey an idea, but it's just jargon "damage control." No real meaning behind those words if the problem for the consumer or constituent is not fixed.
The typical consumer today is a bit jaded, economically fatigued, and a bit skeptical of any statement by company or government officials. So the term "damage control" has a totally different subtext to the man or woman on the street. "Damage Control" means another excuse laden, vague promise making, and/or sketchy side stepping PR moment(s). It just means "protect the company or the politician with words and promises or even lies if need be." The amazing part is that companies and politicians and their PR strategists don't seem to understand: no one is buying a story line, people want action and remedies, not stories.
The BP parody video was wonderful. For some reason, breaking the whole incident into something much smaller that can be more easily grasped, showed even more poignantly the ridiculously ineffective "damage control" tactics. It was so apparently simple, just remedy the situation by cleaning up the spill. Done.
The "United Broke my Guitar" video was again so simple to remedy. Reimburse him for the guitar when you broke it. Done.
The Ralph Lauren "Made in China" uniforms for US Olympic athletes at the summer 2014 games. Simple solution, work like mad to find a US vendor to get uniforms made and sent to the athletes. With unemployment so high, bet there are vendors out there willing to work this out with Ralph Lauren. What did Ralph do, issue a promise for 2014. Really Ralph? All words and no action? It's a new day, a different economy, and a whole new game. People are tired, they're angry, they're broke. Now you insult their intelligence. Not a good PR strategy.
Sure, there are logistical nightmares to work with the vendor, sew new garments, and have them shipped in time. Maybe it wouldn't get there in time, Maybe they could if they paid enough folks, lost some profits, but just made it. Maybe it would get there in time for the closing ceremony. Maybe that's too much integrity to do the right thing. It's much easier to issue a quick PR statement "For more than 45 years Ralph Lauren has built a brand that embodies the best of American quality and design rooted in the rich heritage of our country." No one is believing that one Ralph, after all the label says "Made in China."
If they fix the problem, the issues don't go viral. Even if an issue goes viral, as in the Ralph Lauren case, had they said they were working with XYZ company for Made In USA uniforms to send replacement uniforms immediately the remedy would have been the damage control.
PR statements do not equal damage control
Remedy the situation/problem equals damage control
It also takes the wind out of a complaint. Just saying.
The typical consumer today is a bit jaded, economically fatigued, and a bit skeptical of any statement by company or government officials. So the term "damage control" has a totally different subtext to the man or woman on the street. "Damage Control" means another excuse laden, vague promise making, and/or sketchy side stepping PR moment(s). It just means "protect the company or the politician with words and promises or even lies if need be." The amazing part is that companies and politicians and their PR strategists don't seem to understand: no one is buying a story line, people want action and remedies, not stories.
The BP parody video was wonderful. For some reason, breaking the whole incident into something much smaller that can be more easily grasped, showed even more poignantly the ridiculously ineffective "damage control" tactics. It was so apparently simple, just remedy the situation by cleaning up the spill. Done.
The "United Broke my Guitar" video was again so simple to remedy. Reimburse him for the guitar when you broke it. Done.
The Ralph Lauren "Made in China" uniforms for US Olympic athletes at the summer 2014 games. Simple solution, work like mad to find a US vendor to get uniforms made and sent to the athletes. With unemployment so high, bet there are vendors out there willing to work this out with Ralph Lauren. What did Ralph do, issue a promise for 2014. Really Ralph? All words and no action? It's a new day, a different economy, and a whole new game. People are tired, they're angry, they're broke. Now you insult their intelligence. Not a good PR strategy.
Sure, there are logistical nightmares to work with the vendor, sew new garments, and have them shipped in time. Maybe it wouldn't get there in time, Maybe they could if they paid enough folks, lost some profits, but just made it. Maybe it would get there in time for the closing ceremony. Maybe that's too much integrity to do the right thing. It's much easier to issue a quick PR statement "For more than 45 years Ralph Lauren has built a brand that embodies the best of American quality and design rooted in the rich heritage of our country." No one is believing that one Ralph, after all the label says "Made in China."
If they fix the problem, the issues don't go viral. Even if an issue goes viral, as in the Ralph Lauren case, had they said they were working with XYZ company for Made In USA uniforms to send replacement uniforms immediately the remedy would have been the damage control.
PR statements do not equal damage control
Remedy the situation/problem equals damage control
It also takes the wind out of a complaint. Just saying.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Twitter overload
Whoa, I just spent a couple of hours reading tweets, following links, following followers, finding new folks to follow (like my illiteration?), and generally spending way too much time on Twitter. I did find interesting articles, and that is the addictive part. There's a lot of interesting articles. They are like rabbits, my browser was soon full of tabs of interesting articles. I'm taking a break right now to blog about this.
No wonder I see so many people in the head down, phone in hand posture. They are absorbed in their Twitter account.
I'm giving it a rest for the day to play with Diigo and Evernote.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Tools: Dropbox and Evernote - Wow!
I just signed up for Dropbox and Evernote tonight and I am so excited. I love this cloud computing stuff. I'm thinking of all kinds of personal, business, project management uses for this. They are both so incredibly versatile. I have to let everyone know about it. If they would just try it they too could think of all these possible convenient uses.
Dropbox: My daughter's Mac recently crashed and she lost all her photos. She had some on Picassa, but not all. Mostly it was her older files. My own computer crashed in May and my email on Yahoo was hacked in June (4 times). I lost everything going back to March on my Yahoo account. It would have been easy to save files on Dropbox. I could then access them on various devices, even at school or the library, switching easily to job applications or to homework assignments. It's so easy. The best part is the SSL security. With SSL (Secure Socket Layer) you know this is going to be secure. No more fretting over jump drives or thumb drives and forgetting them, losing them, or destroying them. Just access your Dropbox account through the web. Slick.
This makes a great collaboration tool. All anyone needs to do is set up a folder for the project and allow team members access to it. Great collaboration tool. It would make it easy to work on documents that need everyone's input and/or approval.
Evernote: Whoa, the possibilities are incredible. I imagine researching antiques, for example, Tiffany lamps. I keep all my notes in Evernote, including pricing, descriptions, pictures, and warnings about fakes. Then let's say I'm at a rummage sale and stumble upon something that looks like a Tiffany lamp. I pull out my smartphone or iPad and look up my notes about it in Evernote. Then I snatch up the lamp before anyone else realizes that this is the one long last lamp that is so rare no one else realized it. (Well, this is my example and I can have fun with a little fantasy, right?). That 's one use of Evernote.
I can also envision this being used to manage projects, homework, recipes, scanned documents (to finally archive my huge paperwork mountain), and various things I come across and want to note. No more little snip its of notes tucked into my purse, Filofax, desk, bulletin board, Rolodex (yes, I have one that I scrapbooked up into a very girly looking one), and lots more. This is probably the one tool that will free me from paper and yet give me access to whatever I feel needs to be archived - just not in my little place.
What am I going to do with all this free space once the papers are archived? More craft and antiques! Yeah! The 21st century technology allows me to collect 19th century antiques. There's poetic justice in this.
Dropbox: My daughter's Mac recently crashed and she lost all her photos. She had some on Picassa, but not all. Mostly it was her older files. My own computer crashed in May and my email on Yahoo was hacked in June (4 times). I lost everything going back to March on my Yahoo account. It would have been easy to save files on Dropbox. I could then access them on various devices, even at school or the library, switching easily to job applications or to homework assignments. It's so easy. The best part is the SSL security. With SSL (Secure Socket Layer) you know this is going to be secure. No more fretting over jump drives or thumb drives and forgetting them, losing them, or destroying them. Just access your Dropbox account through the web. Slick.
This makes a great collaboration tool. All anyone needs to do is set up a folder for the project and allow team members access to it. Great collaboration tool. It would make it easy to work on documents that need everyone's input and/or approval.
Evernote: Whoa, the possibilities are incredible. I imagine researching antiques, for example, Tiffany lamps. I keep all my notes in Evernote, including pricing, descriptions, pictures, and warnings about fakes. Then let's say I'm at a rummage sale and stumble upon something that looks like a Tiffany lamp. I pull out my smartphone or iPad and look up my notes about it in Evernote. Then I snatch up the lamp before anyone else realizes that this is the one long last lamp that is so rare no one else realized it. (Well, this is my example and I can have fun with a little fantasy, right?). That 's one use of Evernote.
I can also envision this being used to manage projects, homework, recipes, scanned documents (to finally archive my huge paperwork mountain), and various things I come across and want to note. No more little snip its of notes tucked into my purse, Filofax, desk, bulletin board, Rolodex (yes, I have one that I scrapbooked up into a very girly looking one), and lots more. This is probably the one tool that will free me from paper and yet give me access to whatever I feel needs to be archived - just not in my little place.
What am I going to do with all this free space once the papers are archived? More craft and antiques! Yeah! The 21st century technology allows me to collect 19th century antiques. There's poetic justice in this.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Twitter
Twitter's revenue has been a concern, they keep posting loses each quarter. Yet VC's are still plowing money into the company. They obviously believe Twitter is on the right track. How they plan to monetize their business model is not apparent to anyone outside the company. They examples of marketing campaign successes, such as the Paramount summer blockbuster movie, Virgin mobile, and Audi, are very exciting. It shows the potential to reach the right buying audience in a short "act now" campaign. I love it.
In the meantime as they work out creating more marketing campaigns and building up their base of advertisers, they continue to build their subscriber base. True. If their subscriber base wasn't so large and rich in diversity, the campaigns wouldn't have worked. The campaigns wouldn't have worked if there wasn't a joint effort to advertise them in different medias. But what a success.
Lesson Learned: I may not be crazy about Twitter, but as someone who knows the value of marketing, I will stay involved and keep an eye on how this develops as a marketing tool.
Blogging
Blogging, both internal and external is another social media tool used by large corporations, as in our business case study of DRK. I loved the progressive and open attitude of Rangaswami. I also loved how he allowed employees of various work groups to choose their OS system, PC or Mac, and to choose their own programs. He called it a natural selection process. I call that listening to your employees so they can effectively get their job done. Love it.
Internal blogging is something I wish other companies utilized. I'm always coming up with efficient work arounds, new uses for programs to make the job easier, and work processes to make the job easier. I would gladly share this with others, and I have. My processes have become part of company policies, used to customize programs, and helped others streamline and organize their work. Some of those folks have worked in their position 17 years and started adopting my methods. I bet there are others out there with great ideas that could make everyone's job better.
External blogging would be nice to see as well. When blogging first became more popular among companies, they would hire someone else to write the blog for the president, VP of X"YZ or some other executive. You could always tell. That's not really the intent of blogging, but if it makes them feel like their doing something edgy, I guess it works. When Warren Buffet writes his annual letter to stockholders, everybody is holding their breath waiting for the letter. It is so meaningful for stockholders and non-stockholders to hear what the financial genius of the 20th and 21st century has to say. If he had a blog, imagine the traffic and visits to that blog! It could be another source of revenue for Berkshire Hathaway. Hey, maybe I can propose this to Warren and get a job managing it. I better study hard in this course then.
Lesson Learned: Blogs are effective collaboration tools and motivate employees. I also learned that a leader can be bold and trust his employees to do the right thing. I liked Rangaswami.
Twitter's revenue has been a concern, they keep posting loses each quarter. Yet VC's are still plowing money into the company. They obviously believe Twitter is on the right track. How they plan to monetize their business model is not apparent to anyone outside the company. They examples of marketing campaign successes, such as the Paramount summer blockbuster movie, Virgin mobile, and Audi, are very exciting. It shows the potential to reach the right buying audience in a short "act now" campaign. I love it.
In the meantime as they work out creating more marketing campaigns and building up their base of advertisers, they continue to build their subscriber base. True. If their subscriber base wasn't so large and rich in diversity, the campaigns wouldn't have worked. The campaigns wouldn't have worked if there wasn't a joint effort to advertise them in different medias. But what a success.
Lesson Learned: I may not be crazy about Twitter, but as someone who knows the value of marketing, I will stay involved and keep an eye on how this develops as a marketing tool.
Blogging
Blogging, both internal and external is another social media tool used by large corporations, as in our business case study of DRK. I loved the progressive and open attitude of Rangaswami. I also loved how he allowed employees of various work groups to choose their OS system, PC or Mac, and to choose their own programs. He called it a natural selection process. I call that listening to your employees so they can effectively get their job done. Love it.
Internal blogging is something I wish other companies utilized. I'm always coming up with efficient work arounds, new uses for programs to make the job easier, and work processes to make the job easier. I would gladly share this with others, and I have. My processes have become part of company policies, used to customize programs, and helped others streamline and organize their work. Some of those folks have worked in their position 17 years and started adopting my methods. I bet there are others out there with great ideas that could make everyone's job better.
External blogging would be nice to see as well. When blogging first became more popular among companies, they would hire someone else to write the blog for the president, VP of X"YZ or some other executive. You could always tell. That's not really the intent of blogging, but if it makes them feel like their doing something edgy, I guess it works. When Warren Buffet writes his annual letter to stockholders, everybody is holding their breath waiting for the letter. It is so meaningful for stockholders and non-stockholders to hear what the financial genius of the 20th and 21st century has to say. If he had a blog, imagine the traffic and visits to that blog! It could be another source of revenue for Berkshire Hathaway. Hey, maybe I can propose this to Warren and get a job managing it. I better study hard in this course then.
Lesson Learned: Blogs are effective collaboration tools and motivate employees. I also learned that a leader can be bold and trust his employees to do the right thing. I liked Rangaswami.
I started a Diigo account a while ago, and didn't understand how to
use it or the benefits of using it. This past week, I've had a chance
to explore it a bit more and can see the benefit in using it as a
repository for all the professional articles I've been coming across.
In the past I would bookmark them. Bookmarking is extremely limited
because we can lose them if the computer crashes, change jobs, or switch
computers.
I've also had a Twitter account for about a year. I'm not very active in checking it or tweeting. The content can be limited depending on who we follow. For instance, I follow Guy Kawasaki who tweets all day long. Sometimes the content is interesting and worth following, sometimes it's irrelevant. Following tweets can be beneficial if the tweets are relevant to career or business interests, for the most part, I've noticed people using it to promote their own business activity that is not relevant to me.
Facebook is a nice way to stay connected to old friends, and to reconnect with long lost friends, but I have viewed glimpses into people's lives or thought processes that I find draining. For example, there are several people who post one sided arguments with innuendo's to a certain someone, etc. etc. I am not interested in this nor have the time to read this. I've also been frightened by an old colleague who was extremely down right after the holiday due to a divorce filing. He sounded suicidal. Then in two weeks, he posted he was dating, a week later he was in a relationship, and for the past couple of months he posts all his dating photos, and trips with her. This is a little weird and almost manic/depressive. Did I want to know he was unstable? No. Did I care? Only when I thought he would kill himself. It's very uncomfortable seeing posts like this.
LinkedIn has been developing into quite a nice tool. As an early adopter, hardly anyone was on LinkedIn during the early days, and during that time, I found the tool to be useless and pointless. Eventually more people started using it and the possibilities opened up. Now I connect with peers from previous companies, students, and professionals in the industry. I'm finding business articles of interest and leads for jobs. Of course, one still needs to be wary of accepting whatever is written, not everything is objective or well researched.
I've also had a Twitter account for about a year. I'm not very active in checking it or tweeting. The content can be limited depending on who we follow. For instance, I follow Guy Kawasaki who tweets all day long. Sometimes the content is interesting and worth following, sometimes it's irrelevant. Following tweets can be beneficial if the tweets are relevant to career or business interests, for the most part, I've noticed people using it to promote their own business activity that is not relevant to me.
Facebook is a nice way to stay connected to old friends, and to reconnect with long lost friends, but I have viewed glimpses into people's lives or thought processes that I find draining. For example, there are several people who post one sided arguments with innuendo's to a certain someone, etc. etc. I am not interested in this nor have the time to read this. I've also been frightened by an old colleague who was extremely down right after the holiday due to a divorce filing. He sounded suicidal. Then in two weeks, he posted he was dating, a week later he was in a relationship, and for the past couple of months he posts all his dating photos, and trips with her. This is a little weird and almost manic/depressive. Did I want to know he was unstable? No. Did I care? Only when I thought he would kill himself. It's very uncomfortable seeing posts like this.
LinkedIn has been developing into quite a nice tool. As an early adopter, hardly anyone was on LinkedIn during the early days, and during that time, I found the tool to be useless and pointless. Eventually more people started using it and the possibilities opened up. Now I connect with peers from previous companies, students, and professionals in the industry. I'm finding business articles of interest and leads for jobs. Of course, one still needs to be wary of accepting whatever is written, not everything is objective or well researched.
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