If you don't have anything to say, blog it?

I had an interesting conversation today with the illustrious Ted Coine, (author, former CEO, sardonic observer, heavy tweeter) in which he dared me to blog about the gallon of ice cream I (allegedly!) eat when I have a bad day. So here it is: when I have a bad day, sometimes I comfort myself with food.

And right now, unless you're a Weight Watchers meeting leader, personal trainer, grocery store owner, or ice cream maker, or my husband, you are most likely saying: SO WHAT?

Which is my point exactly. There are all too many blog posts out there that simply have nothing of value to say to an audience larger than...well, one? Two? Immediate family? And that's okay if your blog is "The Smith Family Adventures", or if you just write it for a personal outlet, without intentions of either monetizing it, syndicating the content, or utilizing it as a business marketing tool.  But (and there's always a "but", even if you don't eat a gallon of ice cream...) if you do have any aspirations at all toward a commercial use for your blog, I exhort you encourage you, BEG you: post when you have something to say, and not a minute before.

Nothing turns off a prospect more quickly than seeing an intriguing title, clicking to follow the link, anticipating valuable insights, and then....{crickets}.  That goes for prospective clients, employers, employees, and heck, even potential networking contacts. One post could cost untold opportunities. I have actually unfollowed twitter users for blogging (or tweeting) too much "non-content".

In my case, this blog is meant primarily as a networking tool, and secondarily as an outlet for my desire simply to write. I don't intend to commercialize it in any way. But I still wait until I have a point to make before trying to make that point!   Some food for thought, I hope.

You are what you Tweet! Managing your content for image control, job search, and career credibility.

My mother always told me, "You are what you eat"...of course, if that were entirely true, it would have made her an unholy amalgamation of copious amounts of organic health food mixed with large bags of Doritos every now and then.  But the concept is sound--what you put in determines what you'll get back out.  Garbage in, garbage out, right?  So, we all try to watch our caloric intake, restrict sodium, reduce fat, etc...that's all well and good, but occasionally the temptation overtakes us, and there's a binge on pizza or ice cream or chips or other delicious but not really "good" foods.
Where am I going with this analogy, you might ask?
This week I've been thinking a lot about image, personal branding, the face we show to the world via our online presence and social media.  A few days ago, I saw a re-tweet  to an article for jobseekers that surely hadn't been updated since...well, the days of Glengarry Glen Ross? I got a chuckle out of the ideas it contained, such as utilizing the yellow pages (the WHAT?), or going and knocking on employers' doors.  I guess it was written in the days before key cards and security guards.
The natural question that came to mind was whether re-tweeting such dated content meant that the person who shared it on their twitter feed likely read the title and just clicked to share it--without reading the actual article.  It seems likely to me.
That's OK, in and of itself, but I've noticed that many times the headline of an article or blog post won't actually give you the whole story about what's truly contained in the full piece.  Say you're skimming, see a title that looks relevant to the subjects you like to tweet about or otherwise share with your network, and automatically hit "Tweet".  SLOW DOWN THERE, NELLY!  My advice would be to actually read the article in-depth before clicking that "share" button.  
What happens if the information is inaccurate, dated, falsified, offensive or inflammatory?  Chances are that you'll be judged on the content by followers/readers, just as if it was your opinion they're reading, as opposed to some third party blogger or journalist.   This could be potentially disastrous in a job search, as studies show that the vast majority of recruiters Google job applicants.  Or it could be just plain awkward around the water cooler.  Either way...it's best to maintain control over how you present yourself online, and the easiest way to do that is to remember: You are what you tweet!

To Thine Own Self Be True

Somehow I recently ended up following one of those Twitter people who simply post a quote a few times a day...never a quote of their own, but one they've copied from elsewhere.  Putting aside the fact that I find this practice shockingly far off the mark of what Twitter or any other social network should be, and ignoring the fact that most internet quotes are incorrectly attributed, misquoted, or just plain made up...I did see one that caught my attention and stopped me in my tracks the other day.  To Thine Own Self Be True.   

Now, I'm not the most literate nor erudite of my friends by a long stretch, but I can be a bit of a Shakespeare nerd, so I know this quote inside and out.  Found in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3, the full quote is actually: 

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

This is the farewell of Polonius (a father) to his son Laertes, as Laertes is about to board a ship to France.  On the surface it seems to be kind and gentle advice to his son: take care of yourself.  However, as is true of nearly every line written by the clever and learned* Shakespeare, we need to look a bit deeper.   The reader would do well to bear in mind that in Shakespearean (Tudor) times, France embodied nearly everything that would terrify a devout upper class father such as Polonius--who was at court in the play.  It was a worldly country, full of open debauchery as opposed to the secretive yet likely just as raucous appetites of the Elizabethan court.  In addition, of course, the political relationship between France and Elizabethan England was turbulent, often bloody, and the cause of much paranoia, mistrust and suspicion throughout the upper classes of both countries--and, indeed, most of Europe.

This isn't really the place to deal with an in-depth discussion on Mary, Queen of Scots (and France), and the threat she posed to Elizabeth, but suffice it to say that this fatherly advice was given to a son who was not just heading out into the world, but heading into what the father would perceive as the most wicked, cutthroat, lawless society known to him at the time.

So, Polonius was not just telling his son to take care of himself.  In the vernacular of the day, the word "true" dealt less with avoidance of false speech or deceptive action, and much more with "straightness", as in straight farrows on a farm, or a straight sword.  "True" in this context meant to be on the straight and narrow, basically.  He was telling Laertes to avoid the moral temptations he would surely encounter in "god-less" France--at the same time seeming to caution him that indulgence in such things would surely repay itself in the form of other people dealing immorally or unjustly with him.  So Dad is telling his son, stay "good", moral, above board, keep your nose (and, ahem, other things) clean...and your dealings with others will remain that way as well. In a sense, this was the 17th century equivalent of saying, "pay it forward", and someday it will come back to you.

And when I read that quote on Twitter, I was stunned by just how fundamental and timeless a concept this really is--but also, how many times in history authors feel compelled to continue exhorting readers to do just that.
"The Eloquent Peasant" was a fable written in approximately 2000-1650 BCE in Egypt.  It says, basically, "Do to the doer, to cause that he do".  Confucius flipped the script a little, and sometime around 500 BCE said, and I paraphrase, "do not do to others what you do not want done to you".  Fast forward to the Bible, the Book of Matthew, ca. 100 AD:  "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."  Basically this is the Golden Rule.  But we humans are hard-headed, aren't we?  1400 years later (!!!) Shakespeare still had to hammer away at this point.  And here we are, another 400 or so years after that...in the year 2000 it was still enough of a novel concept to become a movie.  And a decade later, it shows up on Twitter, fodder for the quote-mill.

So, when will we all catch on?  Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You.  It's a perfect statement:  crystal clear.  Reciprocal.  It's a balanced equation.  So why can't we do it?  How is it that we haven't quite figured this out, and it's still necessary for authors to write and remind us of this very basic building block of society?

Whether this relates to a job search (from either a jobseeker or a recruiter's point of view!), or to going about your day interacting with your coworkers or fellow students or your kids or your employees or even strangers...what's so revolutionary about the idea of simply being nice, doing the right thing?  What's really THAT hard about being considerate of one another's space, one another's time, and meaning what you say/saying what you mean?  

I'm sure we all try.  I know I do--but I also know I fail sometimes.  The important thing though, in my opinion, is to keep trying.  That silly one line quote seen on Twitter (right before I unfollowed the semi-spammy sender) has motivated me to revisit this classic axiom, and determine to live every day trying my best to be true to my own self--so that I may be true to all others around me.  What are your thoughts on this?



*For more on my beloved Shakespeare, including information I believe to be accurate about both his lineage and his education, I highly encourage you to read the captivating "Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom".  Whether or not you ultimately agree with the author's assertion regarding the true identity of Shakespeare, it's a fascinating cultural treatise on Elizabethan England and definitely thought-provoking as you read and re-read the works of "the Bard".  

Using Twitter to delight your customers? Yes!

This week I was fascinated to witness (and play a very small part in) an example of a large company utilizing social media in an incredibly productive, efficient, and timely way to delight a customer. To say I was impressed is putting it mildly!  Here's what happened:

I routinely read a blog called Partners In Excellence, which is published by my acquaintance David Brock. It's all about striving to be the best sales professional you can be, including best practices for sales, networking, and social media interactions. On Thursday morning, his post was all about how a very large computer company was just plain "doing it wrong". He kept his complaints factual and professional, while exposing some truly "worst practices" being carried out by the sales force at this company. The full blog post is here: Even The Biggest And Best Get It Terribly Wrong

To sum it up, Dave has been a customer of Dell for 20 years, always purchasing his products online. He recently began receiving not only generic sales promo emails, but also received a call from a direct sales rep looking to sell him 1) products he doesn't even buy, 2) via direct sales as opposed to the web. Why? Why would Dell (or any company) mess with a model that has worked so well for this customer for two decades?
Dave's comments made a lot of sense:

It’s not that uncommon.  I see too many (particularly large) organizations doing stupid things like this.   A well intended market manager, a product manager, a sales manager has a mission and will execute it, possibly thinking they are doing the right thing, but so focused on their mission, they don’t understand what they are really doing.  Senior managers are supposed to help avoid this–making sure all programs and initiatives hang together and make sense. But too often, they fail to do the proper review or get involved in the details.

I thought to myself, now, I've been reading about, observing, and buying from Dell for nearly as long as Dave, and I'll just bet that they'd like to hear about this directly. So I hoped onto Twitter, and lo and behold, there's an active account for Dell's CEO, Michael Dell.   I fired off a quick tweet with a link to the blog post. Within less than an hour (!!!) Dell's customer service twitter account @DellCares had contacted Dave directly, apologized, remedied the situation, AND communicated with me via my personal twitter account @cynthiaschames to thank me for the heads up.

Here's Dave's follow up blog post: We All Make Mistakes, It's How We Recover That Makes The Difference.  My favorite part of what he wrote was this paragraph:

There’s more to learn from the Dell experience other than to know they listen to their customers and take complaints seriously.  Dell is “hanging out” where their customers are, they are listening through all channels, they have organized themselves to take advantage of all channels to reach out and connect with customers.  Organizations that don’t recognize this and leverage it are seriously disadvantaged.  There are many organizations that would not recognize a complaint or problem unless it came to their “complaint department.”  How many times have we tried to get something corrected and the person we first talk to says, “not my job, you have to go someplace else.”  They may offer to transfer your call, but often don’t.

I learned a lot from these events.
1) Social Media is pervasive.  I read a blog post written by someone I met via LinkedIn, then tweeted about it directly to the CEO of a major corporation, whose customer service team is smart enough to use Twitter as a tool to then reach out to that customer.  This interaction didn't require a lot of back and forth, trading of contact information, calling of 800 numbers.  It was simple, clean, quick, and deadly effective.
2) Social Media is powerful.  Three days later, I'm still thinking about it, and still talking about it.  Dave's posts are out there on the web for everyone to see, basically in perpetuity.  The relevant tweets are out there too.  This could be a double edged sword, for any company who DOESN'T respond promptly and take ownership of a situation.  
3) Internal Accountability is key.  I'm sure the people inside Dell who were ultimately responsible for the debacle in the first place felt pretty embarrassed, but at the same time, I'd MUCH rather get an email from the CEO of my company telling me "hey, you messed up" right away, than for it to fester unresolved for the next 10 months until my performance review.  I'd welcome the chance to remedy the issue and make sure we didn't continue making the same mistakes over and over.
4) Taking ownership is non-negotiable.  When you do make a mistake--and we ALL do!--simply owning up to it, and most importantly, learning from it, is the absolute only choice.  Think about how Dave would have felt if this issue had gone unresolved, and he felt ignored.  Maybe next time he was ready to buy computers for his small business, he'd go to a big-box retailer instead of Dell.com?  Maybe he'd write another blog post about how he "used to be" a big Dell fan?  Maybe it would just have kept spiraling from there.  Instead, by immediately addressing the customer's concern, Dell not only basically guaranteed that customer's ongoing loyalty, but they earned themselves some well-deserved positive press, and likely have been alerted to an ineffective internal strategy, which I am sure they're addressing.
5) Dell rocks. For future reference, Dell has a twitter account that is intended for just this sort of customer service: @Dellcares. And clearly? They do.

The Real You online...

Lately I've been thinking a lot about social media, networking, and the concept of personal branding online.  By now I think we've all heard the stories of people being fired for comments posted on Twitter (examples here) and Facebook (examples) and of course, Weinergate has been big news lately (no link necessary!).
I've been in the technology business in one form or another since 1994, and in that time I have seen a huge societal shift toward more open and transparent interactions in business.  Back in the late 90s I recall going to a sales call at a major financial institution, and the client looked me up and down, taking in my beautiful Christian Dior dove gray suit, and then sniped, "Is it casual day?", because I didn't fit in with the sea of black suits, navy suits, and for the really wild ones:  dark grey suits.   Fast forward 10 years, and that investment bank has disappeared, the internet is no longer a novelty but a constant fixture in all of our lives, and corporate culture from investment banks to dot-coms to entrepreneurship has been transformed.  Casual Fridays of the late 90s have come and gone, and now even the more conservative industries have loosened their dress codes.  It's not at all uncommon to see mass media images of the POTUS wearing baseball caps, sweats, or jeans.  Life has become more casual, more relaxed, less "1950s stuffy" in many ways.
While overall I believe this to be a truly positive change, in the sense that we now can connect directly with our clients, business associates, favorite authors, celebrities, government officials, etc.,  as human beings across social media platforms--of course this type of open access also provides challenges.  When participating in social media as a professional, all but the most iconoclastic truly need to edit their thoughts and statements...and I think it's safe to say that we all certainly need to edit ourselves before posting photos!  
This sea change of pervasive connection begs several questions:  do you reserve one social media channel as your own personal outlet, where you can connect with personal friends and interact "freely" with them?  Or do you maintain a (hopefully appropriate) client-ready or hiring-manager-ready persona everywhere you go online?  Do you just throw caution to the wind, with the statement "I am who I am, and if you don't like it..."?  Here's a link to a great podcast about online reputation management.  via Resume Bear.  How do you present The Real You online--and is that the same thing as presenting the "Best" you online?  I'd love to hear comments and thoughts on this subject.  Post a comment, or let's chat @techsheblog!

Are you just another cog in the machine?

This morning I was pleased to read an excellent post in Harvard Business Review from my fellow female professional (and cool chick!), Nilofer Merchant.  Read the article here: People Are Not Cogs.  Here's a great excerpt:

In spite of a forest's worth of academic papers and rafts of best practices published by the likes of HBR on the importance of the "soft" stuff, most companies continue to treat people as inputs in a production line. I've had leaders ask me if this "people engagement thing" is something that can be added on, after the core business stuff is done, sort of like adding frosting to a cupcake.

And I. Can't. Believe. It.

Are we still having this conversation, really?

We know our economy has shifted away from mostly producing things . It makes no sense in such a landscape to keep talking about people as if people are disposable, replaceable, cogs in the mix.

This got me thinking about the impact and role of women in the workplace.  To most women, it's second nature to consider our employees, customers and coworkers (and yes, even bosses) as "only human".  We understand that each individual has strengths, weaknesses, and unique contributions to make.  We view these people as PEOPLE, rather than cogs, or dare I say it, "human resources".  Think about the term "human resources" for a moment, if you will.  A company has lots of resources:  computers, desks, real estate, intellectual property, and so on.  But the difference between the people of the company and these resources is key:  people are not property.  People are human; we're individuals, we have lives outside of work (hopefully); we juggle many things throughout the course of our 24 hours every day.  We have hopes, dreams, attitudes, prejudices, preferences, and independent thoughts.  

Where I think so many companies miss the mark by a mile is ignoring these resources, or worse, treating them like so much chattel.  We're not a product.  We're not automatons.  We're capable of stretching, growing, and contributing to many facets of organizational excellence outside of our strict job descriptions.  An engaged and empowered employee can change the entire landscape of a company, whether their job description is Mailroom Supervisor, or VP of Sales.  Nilofer goes on to state the following: 

There's plenty of empirical data to support this strategic direction. Gallup, the research firm, recently did a meta-analysis across 199 studies covering 152 organizations, 44 industries, and 26 countries. It showed that high employee engagement brings an uplift of every business performance number. Profitability up 16%, Productivity up 18%, customer loyalty up 12% and quality up an incredible 60%.

We know that life is not just about efficiency. So why do we resist the idea that work can be about greatness?

So this morning, I'd like to challenge you:  no matter what your job description or title, whether it's Mommy, CEO, jobseeker, or anything in between...let's strive for FULL engagement.   Really think outside the realm of your normal everyday duties.  Go the extra mile and come up with an idea--and then just make it happen.  Maybe that involves taking the kids to a cultural event they've never before encountered.  Maybe it involves adding a new Coke machine to the 3rd floor of your building so people won't have to waste ten minutes waiting for the slow elevator to get to the one on the 1st floor.  Maybe it means crafting a new way of leaving voice mail messages when you cold call a prospect.  Maybe it means networking in a brand new way, to strive for your dream job.  Whatever it is, believe in it, own it, evangelize it.  This is the first step toward not only becoming fully engaged at work, but also making yourself indispensable to the company and your coworkers (and hopefully, clients!).  

Let's get out there and make something happen today!

If you'd like to follow Nilofer on Twitter, by the way, she's @nilofer.  I recommend it! 

Welcome to techSHEblog!

Hello and welcome to techSHEblog!  If you made your way here via either my twitter feed or LinkedIn, here's a big hug for you. If you found me another way, here's a big hug and a squeeze--because I'm not SEOing or SEMing or otherwise promoting this blog at the moment.  I'm writing it primarily just to connect more deeply  with friends and acquaintances with whom I share common interests.  The secondary purpose--which is a tall order!--is to comment on and share my insights or opinions on current technology and software trends.  That's a good segue into an introduction, I guess...so here's a little bit about me:
I have 7+ years of solid experience in B2B software sales, selling enterprise solutions to the Fortune 1000 for companies as large as AltaVista and as small as 50 employees in a venture-backed startup.  My primary areas of expertise are enterprise help desk, enterprise search, and content management (ECM, CMS, what's the difference...note to self: future blog post?).
In 2002, I was laid off from my software sales job the day before my wedding.  <Insert Debbie Downer's trademark wahhh wahhhh sound here>  While on my honeymoon, I got to thinking about all those times when people encourage you to "follow your passions!".  So, that's what I did.  My passions at the time included collecting very (VERY) expensive handbags, and shopping online.
So, surprise surprise, I founded an eCommerce business selling those handbags.  Within 18 months, I had built the business to $2M in annual sales, and had a repeat customer ratio of over 30%--which I think is pretty darn impressive when you're selling $10,000 purses.  This business was a lot of fun, and pushed me way outside my comfort zones, forcing me to learn about a wide variety of topics.  I delved deeply into search engine optimization from a usage perspective; even though I had some knowledge about SEO from having worked at AltaVista, it's a different animal when it's YOUR site that needs to be optimized and monetized!  I also learned a  lot about social media, which was fairly nascent at the time, but I'm proud to say that I was among the earlier adopters of Facebook ads, a Twitter business feed, Google Tags, Good AdWords, and other social media and online marketing channels that we now take largely for granted.   Things rolled along beautifully for over five years, and then in 2008, a major life change took place for me:  I became the mother of twins.  Now, if you have kids, you may understand why a 100 hour a week workweek isn't really in the best interests of your family.  Nor is it even really possible, with two newborns and no live-in nanny.  Not to mention the fact that a million dollars worth of inventory is fairly vulnerable to spit-up stains.
So I chose to wind down my inventory, close down my eCommerce site, and put the business into dormancy.  My intention at the time was to be a full time stay at home Mommy.

Fast forward six months.

Late that year, due to a combination of me going stir-crazy, and there being a real, genuine need--I accepted what was intended to be a temporary position at a family-owned business.  This business is outside the tech world.  And when I say outside, I mean REALLY outside.  When I arrived, part of my task was to modernize the place.  They still used a cash register from about the middle ages, and literally every order was processed on triplicate carbon copy pages.  I didn't even know people still made those triplicate forms, let alone used them!   So, I set out to evaluate vendors for a CRM and POS system (customer relationship management, and point of sale, for those who are in need of some acronym help).   This process turned out to be pretty involved, because we were in need of an industry-specific solution.  It's now nearly 3 years later, and I'm still there. The systems are live, and I've packed a whole lot of marketing and sales management activity into this timeframe as well, but it's been much more than a full time job.

So, that's where I am now, and how I got here.   My job is basically done at the company where I'm working, and I realize now that I really do relish working full time, bringing value to my coworkers and my clients, and having an identity that has nothing to do with Elmo or Mickey Mouse.

If you've read this far, I hope that you've found that I'm straightforward, outspoken, reasonably intelligent, and I have a pretty good sense of humor.  I also hope you'll consider following me via RSS or email, as I do intend to post regularly--and on much less personal topics!--in the future.  Thanks very much for reading, and feel free to share this blog and my twitter feed with anyone else you think might be interested!