Balance is something my clients struggle with often, and something I struggle with as well. For me it boils down to what is often referred to as the maker vs manager dilemma. I’ve talked a bit about that before, but it’s something that still comes up – after all I am in a business that has a vast need for the creative as well as the managerial, and I own my businesses, putting me in a manager role often, even when it’s time to be creative.

I must say this dilemma is a problem I’m happy to have – I love what I do! To that end, I’ve tried a number of ways to scale this in my search for balance this year. The advice I give my clients works well if you are one business, no matter how large it is or how many people you manage, but how do you scale if you do what I do (three businesses, several monthly events, two yearly events and a variety of clients)?

1) Be The Gatekeeper Of Your Own Time

Set aside time when you aren’t available for meetings or calls. You don’t have to explain to anyone why you aren’t available at a certain time, but you do have to be your own enforcer. Even if you have a secretary or virtual assistant keeping your schedule, you need to help them enforce your blocks of time and set a precedent about this. This is the hardest thing to do – with a global economy, time differences, and the varying schedules of other businesses and people you may work with on projects, you will have some clashes. I can not stress enough how important it is to stand firm. Trust me, when you don’t you cause yourself stress that is far worse than the slight disgruntlement that may occur when someone finds they can’t speak to you right away about something.

2) Don’t Be Afraid To Go After Your Schedule With A Scalpel

A) Recently, I was slated to speak at SXSW. I had a brief solo presentation in the Future 15 block. I was honored to be included, but as the event drew closer, I found myself stretched thin for time, with new client deadlines looming, and no way to make a week of travel fit into the schedule without making my client projects pay for it. About three weeks before the event I politely bowed out and suggested some names of people who were more than qualified to give my talk (never, ever leave a conference planner in the lurch by canceling too close to the date or by not finding your own replacement – it’s just rude). How did I make the tough call? Several factors came into play, but the biggest factor was “How will attending this event affect the quality of work I am providing for my client?” followed closely by “How will this tip the scale on my time and to do list and how long would it take to recover?”

B) On the flip side, it sometimes isn’t your outside engagements like speaking gigs that need to be trimmed, but your client deliverables. I see so many bids for work on projects I’m doing that I have to reject or send back because the person did not include a time line at all, or did not follow the time line set out in the RFP when structuring their bid. If you give the client unreasonable expectations of turn around on facets of the project or result windows, you are going to set yourself, and your client, up for disappointment. This does you both a disservice. Every client would like things to go as quickly as possible, but personally – I’d rather have it go well. Don’t be afraid to be realistic and blunt in your estimates of time – in the end it will work better for everyone, and on some occasions, you’ll still deliver early.

3) Figure Out What Distracts You, And Boot It

In this case, for me, you’d think it was social media being on, like Twitter, when I have to write or create something for a client. Nope, social media isn’t distracting at all – it’s like background noise to me (this may not be the case for you – everyone is different!). For me, it’s the phone. I try to schedule all of my calls on two days in a week. I prefer these days to be Monday and Friday but sometimes it works out to be two other days. Either way, I stick to it – otherwise my deadlines get thrown off balance. I turn the ringer off, the phone face down, and send everything to voice mail, only checking a couple of times in a day, on the other days. That’s what works for me, and it took me a good bit of time to figure that out. Once I did, it made my working life much, much easier to manage.

4) Sleep

Those who know I sleep about 5 hours a night may find this one a bit odd, coming from me, but I assure you it is essential. I don’t do well sleeping more than 5 – 6 hours a night, but others need as much as 14 hours. Figure out your sleep “sweet spot” and make sure you get it. I can tell when I pull several short nights in a row for a deadline that my work product is falling short of my own high expectations (not to mention the client’s), that my decisions are not as sharp as they could be, and that I need to put the brakes on and evaluate my time management to get back on track. Don’t burn the midnight oil because the “cool kids” seem to be up that late if it doesn’t work for you! Most often, those “cool kids” are just night owls and they still catch the sleep they need, just at different times of the day than you might. Learn your body clock, your sleep needs, and manage your time well so you take care of yourself.

5) One Day Blocks

These are not the same as a day off. In my office I call it “going to my garrett” because I do it most often when I need to write. One Day Blocks are days where you simply mark off your calendar, leave your extra gadgets behind and turned off, take only what you need, and go to a quiet place to be creative. No phone calls, no emails, no social media, no surfing the net – just you and your creativity. If you are trying to balance a maker/manager schedule, this will prove to be your hardest step to success. You will find that no one, client or staff, likes for you to be unavailable to them on their schedule for a whole day. I say TOUGH. Don’t defend it, don’t explain it, just stand firm about doing it, once a week or once a month – whenever you need to. Trust me, you’ll thank me for this one if you create.

6) No More Mobile Scheduling

Your calendar is your best resource for keeping yourself in balance and getting things done. In this mobile world, the temptation is huge to schedule things on the fly – everything we do it on our smart phones now, after all. No. Just no. The best advice I ever got on scheduling was from Michelle Wolverton, my VA, when she insisted that I never schedule anything unless I was seated at my desk, in my office, with my main calendar and computer in front of me. And she was right – making that a hard and fast rule was the best thing I’ve ever done for my business and my sanity. That way, you never have a forgotten appointment, you never go to two cities hours apart in one day (trust me, I’ve done that to myself, and once, 4 – don’t ask…), you don’t have calendar to phone synching issues, and you can visualize your entire week or month at a time, unlike trying to look at a tiny phone screen and figure it out.

7) Say No

With everyone chanting the “be helpful” mantra, especially in social media, it’s easy to take it too far. Learn to say no. You can not take on every project. It may look like I do every project, but I assure you, I turn down quite a few. Protect your time and your sanity and don’t be afraid to stand firm with a polite but finite and distancing “What a good idea, but I simply can’t fit that in.” Then stop. Don’t justify, don’t people please, don’t waffle, don’t waiver – say your no and then change the subject or excuse yourself. In the end how many plates you spin (or drop) is entirely up to you.

8 ) Keep Your Offline World Healthy

It’s tempting to have a fully online life for many, but that just isn’t healthy. It can be really difficult to balance work, play and home. Especially if you do this social media thing, and do it well, your offline friends may not understand. I do my best to bring the two worlds together whenever possible. I host wine dinners at my house for those that have become true friends online so they can meet my offline friends, and vice versa. I include and inform the significant other in my life (secrets are unhealthy, transparency begins at home). If your offline friends and family begin telling you they don’t see you often enough, they aren’t just being difficult – they really aren’t. Turn off the computer and go be with them if that happens, immediately, because a strong family and friends are gold. If they want to be online too, show them how – even if having your mom on your Facebook is hard (and it is). Do what it takes to give yourself time with the ones who matter most. No amount of perceived “rock star” online status or temporary internet pseudo fame is worth losing the people who helped get you there.

9) Don’t Leash Yourself To One System

To do lists, Get It Done, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (or whatever that book was called), white boards, segmented time… the list systems we come up with to keep track of ourselves span miles. I recommend having two systems. Why? Because I guarantee that in spite of your best intentions, life happens, and you’ll get off track. If you only have one system, you will only browbeat yourself for not keeping up and not be able to recover. If you have two in place, you can simply say, “Oh shoot, I missed xx on the GTD system, let me go over to my simple tasks in Gmail and see where I need to pick it back up”. It takes the pressure off, and acts as a backup plan. Rigidity kills.

10) Go Ahead: Drop The Ball

I say this with all seriousness – even if you follow every management tip you’ve ever heard to the letter, you will occasionally drop the ball. There will be days when you get frustrated, feel overwhelmed, miss deadlines, get swamped and feel like you are drowning. Trust me, I know. I have some days, maybe twice a year, where I get so frustrated with myself for being off track (yes, I get off track, too) that I look longingly at senior level social media jobs for established companies, because that day it seems like it might be easier to work for someone else. It happens. When it does, do not climb on board the self flagellation train, do not attempt to reboot your to-do list, stop treading water. Take a deep breath, close the computer, and go do something else all day. I am not kidding. Don’t even send an email explaining your absence or making excuses – it isn’t going to bring your project back on track and it is going to distract you from the reboot you obviously need. Go walk in some grass, play on a beach, take your kids to the zoo, hit a few golf balls – whatever. When you return to work the next day, you will find that magically, your reboot has given you an idea enabling you to catch up, and you’ve gotten some much needed time to de stress, because often, stress it what is throwing you off your game.

Have you ever been to meetings of social media groups and wanted to leave because they felt like a Home Owners Association for Social Media? Or read an idea on a blog and thought to yourself “Why is this person or company trying to lay claim to this idea people are already doing on a local level and stifle its growth with rules?”  It seems to me that people or companies strive for rules and regulations for two reasons: a desire to validate their presence in a space, and fear.

Every good social media campaign needs a backbone. It needs a concerted, well-conceived goal set. The right tools (this includes the people actively acting on the campaign). You need solid strategy in place to get you to wear you want to be. At the same time, you need flexibility. If everyone is given a proscribed set of rules on the national level, all we’ll get is an impersonal, HMO style social media experience. This will only serve to drive people away from the platforms you have invested in. If you are going to spend the time, energy and effort (and trust me, a great social media campaign does take effort, time and energy) in this space, why would you shoot yourself in the foot by creating a situation where you can not innovate?

Don’t fall prey to false metrics. Eschew extensive rules. Avoid boilerplate social media campaigns. Leave yourself the ability to respond, to think actively and proactively about the results you are getting. Leave yourself and your company the room to do what needs to be done, and where, in real time. Practice a few common sense guidelines (Listen, Engage, Listen, Be Human, Don’t Tell The Internet If You Wouldn’t Tell Your Grandma, Listen, Share, Help, Be Trustworthy, Listen) and you’ll be fine.

Some of the tools I use to manage my business are tools I also use to manage and monitor my social media and online life as well. You’ll see those on both the “social media toolbox” list and the “CEO on the go toolbox” list. Also, it’s notable that several of the tools on both lists have had significant upgrades in recent months that make them even more integrated, collaborative with other tools, and useful.

As a refresher, my social media toolbox post highlighted: Evernote, Shareaholic (FireFox, Safari), Ping.fm, Ubiquity/FireFox, TweetDeck, TextExpander, Quicksilver, Google stuff, my HTC Mogul PDA and my MacBook. Expect an updated post on my social media tools to drop here or elsewhere soon, as some of those have been adjusted with passing time. You’ll notice that Evernote makes an appearance on both lists, and with good reason – the company introduced some nice on-the-go integrations recently.

So how do I run my business on the fly? It’s important for me to have as much data as possible accessible from anywhere. This means that I use a lot of web based solutions. Until they make a 1TB USB Flash thumb drive (and consider this an official “would someone PLEASE make one?” request), I can’t fit all of my data into any lightweight portable form to take with me. If you are a CEO with a MacBook Air or a netbook, this is doubly true for you – you have even less storage and need computing from the cloud solutions even more.

Equipment

My most essential tools are my MacBook and my HTC Mogul PDA. All of the tools I use for my business are accessible at least in basic form from both (some of the mobile sites leave something to be desired, but I find this true of many mobile sites). Along with that, I carry the chargers with me, which takes up valuable space in my League of Awesomeness laptop bag. Since power is key and cords are bulky, I am researching adding one of these to my arsenal. I also keep my iPod on me with a backup of my presentations, in case something horrible happens to the laptop – color me paranoid, but you never know.

Services

Evernote

Yes, Evernote is on both lists. It is a powerful, flexible way to annotate and track your life and business. I talked about the desktop and web plug in features in the last post. What makes it even more effective are the way it integrates these features into your mobile life. Evernote on my phone lets me keep track of anything I’m doing. I can handwrite a note using Ink Note; I can record a meeting, sing a song I’m writing, speak a poem or story idea I have or give myself a quick voice reminder using Audio Note; I can take a picture of anything and record it with the Photo Note feature; I can even send myself files and text notes. Evernote upped the game recently for this heavy Twitter user by allowing me to link my Twitter account to my Evernote account. By then following @myEV on Twitter, I can DM myself notes and reminders and links to add to my Evernote storage as well. With tagged search and other features, all of my notes are easy to find and ready for me to come back to the next time I load up the desktop app or go to the web site. I can even share the notes with people working on a project with me.

Freshbooks

I can not say enough nice things about FreshBooks. They recently won a Webware 100 award, and with good reason. This accounting solution is lightweight, easy to learn, easy to use and flexible enough to incorporate several other on-the-go tools to make it easier to track time, expenses, calls and more. I love that I can create estimates and invoices for my clients that include action items, allowing them to link to the live estimate or invoice and make change requests, accept the terms, pay online and more. It’s very convenient on both sides. Not only that, the customer who has an ongoing project can log in and track time spent on their project, see progress reports and more. It handles staff that work for you as well as clients, and now it is going social – allowing freelancers and subcontractors to link to projects as well, creating a network of people I work and collaborate with. I use this every day, either via the web client, the time tracking widget for my MacBook, my phone (using other services to text in time tracked, expense, or calls made) and more. An ideal accounting solution for the small to medium business that integrates with applications like Xpenser, SkyDeck, etc and exports compatible file types to other accounting software as well.

Xpenser

This little tool let’s me send a tweet, an email, an IM or an SMS from my phone to track expenses. It tracks mileage, meals, time on a project, and more. All you have to do is link it to FreshBooks using the FreshBooks API and it sends all of these expenses to FreshBooks to be associated with a client and project. It also offers a full slate of reports and other features to make it a good stand alone solution for export to desktop accounting programs.

SkyDeck

Another tool that integrates with FreshBooks, allowing me to sync my calls from my cell phone into my FreshBooks account and associate them with a client or project for billing time. It also has some pretty nifty other features, like being able to make a text or call right from the application, see who you call most, get reports to your email on your cell phone usage and even get nudged if you used to talk to someone and don’t call them as much anymore. There is a social aspect to SkyDeck, as it lets you connect with your friends who also use it, a nice touch.

Kall8

The Uptown Uncorked 800 number is run through a company called Kall8. It costs very little money to run the line, and comes with some nice features. A favorite is call block per number – you can log into the web site and block a number if you get put on a fax machine auto dial list or a telemarketer gets around the National DNC list somehow. This is very handy. Since it is web based, you can forward your calls anywhere you are, receive web based faxes (and send them), get voicemail and more.

YouMail

You may be thinking I spend a lot of time using call management solutions. I do. The less time I spend on the phone, the more work I get done, so I have several options for filtering calls. In addition to Kall8, I use YouMail. YouMail gives me the Caller ID of every caller, shows me when a friend is calling, but most importantly for this woman who hates to waste time checking voice mail, it transcribes my voice mail to text messages for me. Fantastic feature, and a total time saver.

PockeTwit

This Twitter client from Google Code is wonderful. It gives you an attractive, iPhone-like Twitter experience complete with avatars and a full feature set (as well as interacting with other services, like identi.ca, etc) for your WinMo Touch phone. The fact that I can use features like favorite, retweet and more while on the go is invaluable for me, as a heavy Twitter user.

QIK

This live streaming video solution for my phone lets me grab events and interviews on the fly and share them immediately without needing a ton of expensive equipment.

Contxts

Contxts give you Paperless Business Cards. Text geechee_girl to short code 50500 and you’ll see what I mean and why these are so handy.

Google Docs

I use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office when traveling, as it lets me access my work from anywhere. At the home office I use iWork instead of Office, which imports and exports Google and Microsoft compatible formats.

Small Notepad and a Pen

Trust me, even with a phone and laptop on you, there will always be an occasion to use the old fashioned pen and paper when you are traveling. Your IMAP Gmail may hang up or fail, you may need to write notes larger than a business card back, your battery may run out of juice – stuff happens. Be prepared.

And there you have it, the tools that let me run two businesses (Uptown Uncorked, Social Mic), plan events like SMBNH and PodCamp NH, advise companies like Film Pop! and others and write for my freelance writing clients while I’m on the go. What’s in your toolbox for business or for social media?

Disclosure: some links in this blog will be affiliate links

The platform is attractive in its simplistic presentation. When scrolling through my stream on my Macbook Pro, the application reacted smoothly, and I’ve yet to experience any hiccups or delays in any functions. One of my biggest complaints with some AIR applications, such as Twitter platform Twhirl, is that they tend to be a little slow on the pick up and reaction time. No such issues here.

The platform allows you to work in a large-screen mode or in a “widget” mode, which shrinks down the feed to the bare necessities. Coming to my first issue with the platform, the smaller widget really isn’t what you’d call small. Though you can change the height of the window, the width is fixed. That wouldn’t be a big deal if the widget mode changed the size of each update displayed, but it doesn’t…and each update is sizable in display.

In fact, the whole platform, for all its clean simplicity, is a bit bulky in its presentation. There’s a lot of unused space that could be eliminated, making the platform more streamlined and aesthetically-appealing. For those of us with limited screen real estate, using every centimeter of space is crucial. Skimmer doesn’t have any skin or display options to change; if it did, I’d love it. But on a positive note, that’s my biggest gripe with the platform.

Moving right along, Skimmer allows users to update their various accounts from the platform…no suprise there. But unlike some platforms, where updating your status on a platform linked to multiple accounts doesn’t allow you to update each account differently, Skimmer lets you select which account to which your update will be posted. Or, if you like, you can post the same update to all accounts. Personally, my activity on Facebook is different than it is on Twitter or Youtube, so I like to update each individually, but to each his or her own. This feature earns a big check-plus from me.

Users can also filter their feeds easily, selecting which accounts they’d like to incorporate into their streams. Sometimes I just don’t care whether my friends are updating their Facebook profiles, or what they have to say. Uncheck Facebook from your stream directly the Skimmer application, and you’re set.

I particularly like that Skimmer renders pictures and videos uploaded to all the different services it supports right in the window. I won’t drop names, but I watched a particularly..unique..rendition of the Disney song “A Whole New World,” a YouTube post, right from Skimmer. If I’d had anything constructive to say, I could have commented on the video directly from Skimmer as well. Nice.

Continuing with more cool features, you can filter your stream down by keyword, friends, and platforms. Skimmer does display your friend avatars (or profile pictures, whichever you like), and next to the images are small little platform icons, indicating which platform the update is coming from.

I’ve just started using Skimmer, so I’m certainly not fully familiar with all of the platform’s features, but I will certainly continue using it. If you’re out there, nice folks at Skimmer, you’d have one very happy customer if you let me skin the thing or make the appearance a little less bulky. Pretty please?

UPDATE: Still, I guess Skimmer is really delivering on exactly what it claims to do. As far as viewing your social stream, the platform excels. But when it comes to communicating, such as sending messages on Twitter, the app is lacking. For instance, when I received a tweet from a friend, there was no indication that the entity in my feed was in any way different from the rest of the noise. Lucky I saw the tweet as it came in; otherwise, I would have had no clue that I’d been contacted.

Skimmer is just that. But, if the team over at Skimmer was to add in a bit of functionality that focuses on communication, such as differentiated postings so users can know when they’re being contacted, then we’d have a serious application on our hands. I think it is a contender against my partner Leslie’s preferred tool, Strands, or the tech crowd’s favorite, FriendFeed.

As of this moment we have 80 people booked and another 35 on the waiting list. That is huge! Thank you for the support for this big, crazy idea I had of bringing the SMB family of events to NH! I would ask that if you are on the official list of attendees who registered on the official registration page here and you can not come, please let me know via email or DM by Thursday so I can pass your spot on to someone else on the waiting list. If you aren’t sure if you registered, please look on the EventBrite page here. We’ll be checking names against the list at the door on Friday.

For Parking

A campus/parking map is available here. The event is in the “Hospitality Center” which is marked as #24 on the map. That’s immediately on your right after coming into the north entrance to SNHU. The parking area for the event is Lot #2 which is just on your left after coming in the north entrance.

Update on Parking from SNHU via Twitter: New map for Social Media Breakfast. Use driveway beside Building #7 on http://SNHU.edu/212.asp -park in any lot near Hospitality Bldg #smbnh <- current as of 2/19

Livecasting and Internet

That’s right, DimDim will be live casting the event on their site (LiveCast Link, Do NOT Log In Until After 7:45AM 2/20 – It Will Not Be Active Until Then!!!)! If you missed the registration cut off, you will still be able to see the event from wherever you are. There will also be WiFi internet available, a password and user name for which will be handed out at sign in on Friday. As with any internet connection, if you are a speaker, please bring a back up of your presentation in case technical difficulties happen.

Speakers

In addition to myself, who will be your host and MC for the morning, you will have three speakers giving three brief presentations on topics relating to the theme for the morning: Building Bridges. As you know, I promote reaching out beyond the occasionally myopic world of social media to include and educate (and be educated by) other fields that we work with and for. To that end, I’m pleased with our three speakers and their topics. They are: Jen Zingsheim, Vice President, Products and Services for Custom Scoop, who will be discussing building bridges between old media and new media; David Hurlburt, Executive Producer for WMUR News Channel 9 who will be discussing the hurdles faced as an old media company trying to incorporate a social media strategy and the effect it has had on the employees and work load; and Wayne Kurtzman, Senior Marketing Analyst for Hello Direct, who will be discussing going from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy and the strategies and struggles we face in the change in systems.

Schedule

We will begin at 8:00 AM Eastern with breakfast buffet and mingling until about 8:45 AM. We’ll then kick things off with Jen Zingsheim, followed by Wayne Kurtzman and then David Hurlburt. Each speaker will have up to 10 minutes to present, followed by a few minutes of questions and answers. After that we’ll break for more mingling and to give you a chance to meet the speakers and each other one on one before returning to our offices for the day. I’m excited, and I can’t wait to see some of you again and to meet others for the first time. If you have questions, just DM me or email me before the event.

I love this. Not only does it add value for the people who hire us, it adds value for us here at Uptown Uncorked. The more talented people we bring together, the more we learn and grow ourselves. This is nothing new – Chris Brogan has been talking about pirate ships and collaboration for months, Laura Fitton just started a collaboration with SHIFT in addition to the collaboration she was already embarked on with myself and Michael Gruen to write Twitter for Dummies, and I see more and more people making connections for shared work on social networking tools like Twitter.

Why am I so excited about the idea, beyond the potential for learning and increased quality? Because I think this is the first positive fallout from the wobbly economy. Great stress provides a platform for great change. I am loving seeing the concept of competition turn into an overall seed for increased collaboration and consensus. I can’t wait to see how this sea change affects us on and off line as a whole community in 2009.

Do you think collaborative economy is as exciting a concept as I do? Do you think it will be the mechanism for pulling the economy back together over time? Can it work on its own, or is it missing something that would push it over the top and make it even better? My strengths are in writing, business development and social media and not complex national economics, so I’d love to hear your input in the comments.

Part of the event is already sponsored but we are still seeking sponsors for the food so that people can attend for free. You can sign up here to attend and/or to sponsor. Do you want to speak to the social media and technology communities on a topic related to the theme “Building Bridges”? Let me know!

Do you have a favorite you’ve received? Share the love in the comments.

Triston touched briefly on this from a Millennial perspective over on Tech.Blorge, as well. In light of the changing job market and emerging new economy, I wanted to go into a bit more detail for those of you who are coming in to the job market. Following some of the pointers will help you if you are already in the market for a job, but these tips will most benefit the Millennials and Digital Natives out there who will be entering the future work space.

Your Online Presence Is Part of Your Searchable Personal Resume From The First Day You Participate on the Internet

Whether you first log on to MySpace or a school network in your teens, or start using Disney’s closed social networks from the age of three with parental supervision, know that your online presence is recorded somewhere, in some way, from the first time you participate. Levels of privacy vary, but it is safe to assume that a determined person can find our online history, all or in part. Thanks to sites like the Wayback Machine you can even find data from the early days of the Internet as we know it, pre social media.

The up and coming digital natives are much more in tune with this lack of separation between personal and private identity. Even so, job seekers should be prepared to either monitor what their friends say about them online, or be prepared to address it when interviewing for a job. Quite a few employers already include Google, FaceBook, Flickr and MySpace in their pre-employment screening of you, making that MySpace ‘photo shoot’ have implications beyond fun and games. The number of employers who search your background online will only increase as the social internet becomes more and more mainstream.

In the eyes of some employers, and some clients for the self employed or entrepreneurs, simply untagging photos and notes mentioning you is not going to be enough. These potential employers and clients want you to be more careful in even choosing your free time activities and friends. Luckily, these employers that don’t fully grasp the connectivity of the web and real world and the necessity for having a life in addition to a career will all have digital natives managing their Human Resources department in a few years, so that should ease up a bit. The rest of the companies out there are often satisfied by keeping photos of you socializing untagged and other basic reputation management precautions.

You Are Your Brand

Reputation management goes farther than making sure those photos and videos of you with the donkey doing tequila shots down in Cancun on Spring Break stay untagged. It also applies to positive reputation enforcement. Realizing that you, and your name, are going to be forever associated with your actions and making sure positive, well-rounded actions are tagged to you is just as important as keeping tabs on your slip-ups.

Positioning yourself as an expert in an interest or field early on is key. Have more than one interest? Find ways to associate yourself with them all, in a reliable, visible way. Two shining examples of reputation management and positioning in a field of expertise at two different stages of life and career are Ben Grossman and Chris Brogan. Ben, a digital native, has already worked on national campaigns in social media, started a consulting business and launched a career as a speaker. If you look for Ben online, listen to him online, then meet him in person, what you see is what you get because of his innate awareness of online presence. Chris Brogan also translates well from online ‘persona’ and image to offline person. At a much more advanced stage of his career than Ben, Gen Xer Chris has been keeping his personal brand “real” since before the concept of personal brand even existed, participating in the social media space since it first took flight. Chris’s approach involves a great deal of involvement with and transparency of his on and offline brand.

Managing your personal brand as well as Chris and Ben do takes quite a bit more time than most of us have to spend. By setting up tools like Google Alerts, TweetBeep reports, and other monitoring services you can find ways to check in on how you are presented online more efficiently. Periodically do vanity searches on your name to make sure you are confortable with the content that shows up, and be prepared to handle it if you aren’t. By keeping track of how you appear to the world, you make yourself more hirable in the age of the social resume and hyper connectivity.

If you look around the social media universe and the internet, you start to notice that the people that are talking and the people that are also listening are standing out. These people are getting the job offers, the offers of collaborative projects, the referrals. They have used the social web via tools like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more to be seen and heard, to help people out, to showcase their knowledge, to learn from others and to interact. When you are job hunting, this network and authority building online is key to your success.

Building Authority and Trusted Networks

Building authority is part of the equation, as is presence, brand and reputation management and building your trusted network. The key component to this is the element of trust. In order to become trusted (and hirable) you have to prove yourself trustworthy. There are plenty of people online who are authorities in their field who aren’t trustworthy. Online leeches, they gain reputations for stealing content, horning in on clients or potential bosses, being creepy in general (usually when you meet them in person the creep factor is high) and doing nothing but take. To be hirable, you want to avoid becoming an online leech.

To become valued, you have to listen as well as talk. Please tell us about your area of expertise, but also listen when we respond to you, when we ask questions, when we offer suggestions. Authority without compassion and listening is hollow, and will get you nowhere. Success in hiring 2.0 is a two way street. Your next employer or client is looking for you, even as you are looking for them. You never know how you will find each other, so make sure you have been keeping your ducks in row and working toward your own bright future since day one. Innovate, participate, and actively listen and see how you can give back a part of your recipe for success in creating your social resume.

All this time, the social media community has been nothing but supportive and generous to me, welcoming me into the community here in Boston and giving me ample opportunity to spread my wings and fly. It is my hope that by joining the interim board at Social Media Club, I’d be able to spend some of my free time giving back.

I see social media as an integral part of our society, and I see the various players on the social media field as a giant team that can lift each other, and our community outside of the social media arena, into the stratosphere. There is so much we can do to bridge the gap between each other, and between social media and our communities – I’m excited for the chance to be part of it.

I’m on a list of stellar social media types, and I’d be honored if any one of us nabbed the nomination. Even so, what I think I bring to the table that some of the social media giants may not is a fresh face, an untapped, uncorrupted point of view. Because I haven’t been as immersed in the lovely cloud of social media alone for the last while, but have also seen the other side of the horizon, I think it will lend a unique point of view to the ideas and projects we generate at the Social Media Club.

I’m looking forward to working more with the amazing people. If you’d like a fresh voice joining the chorus, please go here and vote for me. Poll is open until July 17th, 2008.

Thanks!

As a side note, I was privileged to be a panelist on Aaron Brazell’s show, The Aaron Brazell Show, the other night. I had a blast talking technology and politics with Aaron (who you may know best as Technosailor), Leslie Bradshaw, and Andrew Feinberg We were also joined by S. Dawn Jones, Steve Hodson and Art Lindsey III. If you’d like to read about it and hear the episode, visit this link.

NOTE: I don’t usually cross post to Smoke Rings and Uptown Uncorked, but in the interest of getting the word out about the vote, this post is being posted in its entirety on both Smoke Rings and Coffee Stains (my personal blog) and Uptown Uncorked.