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Before lashing out on the global stage, step back.

Just a quick post today to remind all my friends that, when you lose your cool with someone online, take a step back before reacting on the global stage.

This professional meltdown on Twitter Ian described a few days ago logs another case study about the double-edged sword social media wields. It's another cautionary tale about the consequences of losing our professional demeanor in social media spaces. What you say in the heat of a few very brief moments can continue to taint your professionalism for a very long time.

In previous posts ("Professional Presence" and "What online legacy are you leaving?") I commented on the need to exercise extreme professional discipline when putting stuff "out there." It's the kind of content potential business partners, customers and employers can--and do--find.

Consider these timeless snippets from a March 2007 post on Web Worker Daily:

• Seventy-seven of 100 recruiters said they use search engines to check out job candidates;
• One in 4 said they use internet search engines to research potential employees;
• One in 10 said they also use social netowrking networking sites to screen candidates.

The snippets above were gleaned from a 2006 survey by ExecuNet in Norwalk, Conn. Question for you: it's now about 3 years later. Do you think these ratios have increased or decreased?

In a career transition? Get real!

Career transitions have been a key topic amongst friends and professional connections. At a recent ASTD-OC meetup it seemed like at least 1/4 of some 60 attendees stood up when asked if they were job hunting. (It wasn't to put them on the spot. The agenda usually includes a segment where we connect folks seeking career transitions with others who know of opportunities at their respective companies.)

For my part, I've been passing along information I get online from recruiters and referring recruiter calls to colleagues whom I know are in the hunt. I keep an eye out, as well, in the forums I participate in and pass along any relevant info I come across. 'Matter of fact, I'm posting this to share a couple of nuggets I recently came across.

• Guy Kawasaki posted this on his blog earlier this month: "10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job."
  While all the points Guy makes are worth a read, I want to especially bring your attention to points #: 4, 5, 6, 8. These allude to a relatively new feature on LinkedIn, called "Companies," that I know many of my professional colleagues weren't aware of. It's still in beta and can give you some great insights about finding your way to decision makers.
• Related to the point above is Paul Godines post: "Penetrate a Company With Your Resume - Three Creative Ways to Get Your Name in Front of a Decision Maker."

Both the posts above are recent reads that I think can help even some of you veteran networkers find new approaches and new ideas for getting connected with decision makers.

But, get "real."

In addition to online connections, I also encourage friends to continuously think about how to extend those online connections to the real world.

In a previous post I made the case that social networking isn't about "point solutions." That is, it isn't just about making connections on Facebook, or just about making connections on Twitter, or just LinkedIn. They all have to be looked at in aggregate as an integrated set of tools in a toolbox. A toolbox which, as it happens, also includes offline tools such as: lunch meetings, group meetings, and telephone touchpoints.

Along those lines, I'd encourage you to keep an eye out for "meetups" in your area. One manifestation of these is the "tweetup." In my area, we have something called the OCTweetup (Orange County Tweet up). There's even a group for it on Facebook.

Can't find one in your area? Start your own. Send a tweet out to your network on Twitter, do a search amongst your friends on Facebook or your connections on LinkedIn to find those who live or work in your area. Send a message suggesting a group meetup at one of the local Starbucks or other coffee shops.

Often, the one-one-one meetups develop from group meets where folks feel less awkward about an initial meeting.

By starting big and wide through your online connections, and then incrementally localizing to smaller and smaller group meets, you'll create opportunities to maximize your connections.

What'd I miss. Any other thoughts about how best to maximize the mutual benefit of online connections?

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ASTD chapters: Can we use social networks for mutual benefit with college students?

During a meeting last month of our local ASTD chapter (American Society for Training and Development, Orange County California Chapter), I participated in a volunteer's breakout session.

One of the points of discussion was to consider ways in which our chapter might increase membership. Especially in a tough economy where folks might better think to save their dollars instead of shelling out for an association membership.

Content is King

Of course, one suggestion that immediately comes to mind is, as they say, content is king. If we, as a chapter, have good content, great events, and high-caliber professional connections, AND we publicize those facts effectively, there's a case to be made that "they will come."

Another suggestion, among many others, was to work with local colleges. That is, work with professors, OD (Organizational Development) programs and on-campus associations to gain visibility for the benefits of ASTD chapter participation.

I obviously think there are a lot of benefits, else I wouldn't be volunteering my time.

Be Visible, Be Relevant

When I was going through grad school, I had a hankerin' interest in OD (Organizational Development) type programs. Little did I know at the time, I was to enter a long career in the training, organizational development and change management field. But, curiously, I didn't know at the time about ASTD. Matter of fact, my exposure to off-campus professionals was primarily through recruiting programs set up by for-profit companies during their twice-annual recruiting drives.

Few recruiting events I saw were from ASTD or similar non-profits.

So, I was definitely "in" when someone suggested working with local colleges to gain visibility and local relevancy for our local ASTD chapter.

Of course, you know me, Mister "the-world-is-a-social-network." I naturally started thinking how we might use that venue to attract tomorrow's finest learning professionals for our chapter, help them get connected with other professionals while paying it forward with their own contributions and volunteerism.

Study: Use of Social Media by College Admissions

Coincidentally, just the other day, I also came across this study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research on the use of social media by college admissions. (Whew! Say that ten times fast!)

Some highlights:

• Institutions of higher education outpaced traditional Fortune 500 companies in their use of social media to communicate with their customers.
• 85% of college admissions offices are using at least one form of social media.
• Social networking is the most common form with 61% of admissions departments using it.
• Admissions departments feel social media is "very important" to their future strategy--even more so than the Inc. 500 businesses.

The study sort of validated my thoughts about the value social networks might have for us, as a chapter, to engage many of our future members through college campuses. But, just as the study suggested for campus social networks, we could learn a few things ourselves as a chapter about making social networks more effective.

Four suggestions for local ASTD board members:

• Invoke (you like that word?) ASTD chapter representatives to engage social networks at selected local campus admissions programs. In the same way that I espouse Product, Customer Service and Marketing managers of for-profit organizations to engage their customers where they like to play, so to speak, there's no reason why the same rule shouldn't be applied for non-profits. Let's find those local campuses that have active online social networks; register for an account. Assign key/motivated members from our board and/or member base to engage students in those communities and serve as a conduit to the professional learning community.

• Revamp our own existing ASTD Chapter blog, bring it "in house." Currently, it sits "off-site" hosted via an arrangement with Jobing.com. While I appreciate the rationale for partnering with Jobing.com, my sense is that we dilute much of our own brand, not to mention the backlinks we could otherwise enjoy by ramping up our own content. That said, I wouldn't necessarily can the Jobing.com blog alltogether. Rather, what I'd recommend is that it be populated via an RSS feed from our future "in-house" ASTD-OC chapter blog.

• The ASTDOC chapter blog should, in turn, be established as a network blog to include students. That is, a blog with multiple accounts for contributing authors. Contributing authors should then be gleaned from our pool of active members (who want to blog about relevant case studies from their own businesses, for example) and selected college students from selected university educational programs. (E.g., Students in the fields of OD, Change Management, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and so on.) By setting it up with this kind of participation, my hypothesis is that we encourage a culture of "cross-pollination" of best practices (from active/business professionals) and emerging methods (from campuses and university participants).

• Establish "outposts" where students with desired/target skills "play." That is, create organizational personas on such places such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to give a face to the the chapter and its activities. At the moment, there is, in fact, an active discussion forum on LinkedIn and an ASTDOC group on Facebook. Those help. But we need to go further.
  
  Each of these should be actively managed as if it were its own person. What I mean is, do it in the same way that I, or some of you, proactively manage our personal accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
  
  Think about it. We each initiate our own posts and "reach out" to other peeps with whom to connect and dialog. In that same manner, ASTD-OC should be reacing out as an organizational person.
  

Any thoughts? Am I off base? Wishful thinking? Not going far enough? Please share by clicking the comments link below.

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Learning styles are silly...

That seems to be Professor Willingham's position in the video below.  Bacal & Associates, on their web site at thetrainingworld.com (which has some interesting articles, by the way), goes further by suggestng that "...the constant reference to learning styles is, to be blunt, outright stupid, and more akin to a fad."

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For my part, my reaction is that, it's tough to refute Professor Willingham's hypothesis. (Though, I do count myself among those who believe that trainers should be nimble enough to sense and adapt to different "learning styles.")

The reason I think it's tough to refute is because on one level (theoretical) I agree.  Yet on another level (practical), I'm left wondering if he and I would agree or disagree.  (It's tough to know with academic-types, sometimes.)

I think so much of his argument is based on the word "always".  That is, his proposal seems to refute learning styles theory on the basis of the "silly-ness" in the idea that the theory would suggest "...an auditory learner is ALWAYS going to learn better if you present things auditorily..." 

Well, when put that way, I guess I'd have to agree.  The word "always" kinda gets in the way.  After all, even a self-described auditory learner would probably throw her arms up in frustration and say, "just show me!" if I was to try and use only words to describe the shape of Algeria, say.  So, in that sense, I'd agree with the good professor.

But here's also where my admitted bias against academicians rears its little head. I'd argue that the practicalities of the field require me, as a trainer, to adapt to auditory, visual and kinesthetic, ahh, "techniques." In that regard, I wouldn't be too quick to discredit "learning styles theory" as "silly," as the professor seems to do.

Where an academician might be willing to, for the sake of publishing-or-perishing, argue the limitations of the theory on the basis of the implied "always," the practicalities of my work  dictates a more forgiving stance.

I'd say that the theory does its job.  It offers a good foundation for simple folk like me to get my head around the need to adapt my teaching style in the field on the basis of things labeled "auditory," "visual" and "kinesthetic."

Am I catering to "learning styles" when I do that?

A professor might want to engage me in a lengthy discourse on whether I am or not.

I, on the other hand, would say, "You go write your essay, professor.  Meanwhile, I've got a class to teach.  Time's money..."  ;)

Thoughts?

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