April 24, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Communications, Internet/Web Services, News & FYI, Personal Computing, Personal Interest.add a comment
Recently, I was motivated to setup an account and establish a profile on Facebook. While I have maintained a presence on LinkedIn for several years, not everybody that I need to stay in touch with has a LinkedIn account. Further, LinkedIn is geared for professionals and executives, while Facebook is targeted at the general population who basically want to engage in recreational social networking.
A high school buddy contacted me several weeks ago. After catching-up a bit, our dicussion turned to what other members of our circle of friends were up to of late. One of our mutual friends has done extremely well career-wise, and is currently the CEO of a Fortune 1000 ranked company. Much to my surprise, this friend did not have a LinkedIn profile, but did have a Facebook page.
Trying to contact my friend through his executive assistant would prove difficult and time-consuming. (How many people try to contact CEOs of major corporation using the guise of being a “good friend”?). His personal contact information was unlisted, not unusual for executives. So, I created a Facebook account and contacted my friend through a Facebook “friends” invitation. A few days later were were in touch and catching-up on the events of the past years.
An unexpected surprise was finding that my friend had stayed in touch with other high school friends who I had no luck in finding current contact information. Additionally, through my Facebook page, I’ve received invitations from other friends. I’ve also received invitations from people around the world that share common passions and interests.
As a person who values his personal and professional network of friends and associates, Facebook appears to be a valuable web service for staying in touch with friends and meeting people form all walks of life. While I can visualize people rolling their eyes wondering what took me so long to discover this, I would remind them that many similar services promise the same benefits as Facebook and fail to deliver anything other that an increase in junk mail.
I would also argue that some popular web services, such as Twitter, can be extremely addictive and serve to disrupt people from focusing on their own life pursuits. (For more on this perspective, have a listen to Mark Horstman on Twitter.) I have seen some unique applications of “Twittering”, so I may revisit Twitter at some future date. In the mean time, there are many other great web services rolling out that hold greater promise of delivering benefits that are of interest to me and those that I count in my circle of friends and colleagues.
Writing Effective Recommendations for LinkedIn Colleagues December 20, 2008
Posted by jimintriglia in Career Development, Communications.Tags: Career Development, Jibberjobber, LinkedIn
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One of the best ways of recognize a business colleague for their excellent work is to submit a LinkedIn recommendation.
Writing a good recommendation is not a difficult task, providing you some give thought about what you want the recommendation to accomplish for your colleague.
Jason Alba, founder of JibberJobber.com, provided excellent advice on the topic of writing a LinkedIn recommendation. Consider his advice before you write that next recommendation for a friend or associate– it can make a real difference in the quality and effectiveness of the recommendation.
Words Mean Things December 19, 2008
Posted by jimintriglia in Communications.Tags: Communications, Journalism, writing
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A colleague recently pointed out to our team of writers just how important context is respective of the words that we choose when communicating with one another. He offered this example from the perspective of the military:
If you tell a Marine officer to “secure the building,” but give him no more instruction, he will plan an assault.
If you tell an Army officer to “secure the building,” he will personally emplace his machineguns in the best locations to cover the “likely avenues of enemy approach,” and after 24 hours the structure will be fit to hold off an attack from a force three times the size of the Army unit inside.
If you tell a Navy officer to “secure the building,” he shuts down the computers, spins the dial on the lock of the file cabinet, turns off the lights and locks the front door.
If you tell an Air Force officer to “secure the building,” he looks it up on Google Maps, gets his contracting agent, and heads down to the local real estate agent where he takes out a 20 year lease with an option to buy.
Source: Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Bateman, http://www.concernedjournalists.org/secure-building
As words truly do mean different things to different people, it is always wise to consider context when communicating with one another.
