Joe Hodowanes highlights “The 10 qualities interviewers look for when interviewing".

Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

Jon Udell shares: How to request a library book...via Amazon. Via Merlin Mann:

I still can’t get over how cool this is. Jon Udell’s little wizard lets you generate a bookmarklet for requesting a library book—based on the Amazon page you’re currently viewing. It’s clearly a flawless lifehack. You just need to know your library’s URL and which system your own city uses (which Jon makes simple by providing preview links to see which style your system seems to follow). San Francisco folks, use “http://sflib1.sfpl.org/" and leave the default system of “Innovative" selected.

Personal Productivity

The reliably worth-reading Merlin Mann crafts some more useful tips on Writing sensible email messages. His points also apply well to blog posts. EOM ("End of Message").

Personal Productivity

Joanna Glasner of Wired writes about the new social network-based recruiting systems, such as H3, Jobster, LinkedIn, and Accolo, in Wired News: Cash in on Your Social Network

For job seekers who like to network, the introduction of more referral-based online recruiting services sounds like it ought to be a good thing. But David Teten, co-author of The Virtual Handshake: [Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online], a book on social networking [online], says such services can work better for unsociable types who are dedicated to their jobs. Who you know does matter, Teten noted, but what they think of you matters more. "If you know 100 people, and they all think you're mediocre, then you really don't have a great network," he said.

For more on this, see my earlier post, Finder’s fees for helping companies hire their next employee

Social Software

For a great overview of why I'm so excited about social software, a.ka. social machines, see Wade Roush's article, Social Machines from the MIT Technology Review. The conversation is continued at continuousblog.net.

As advanced as our PCs and our other information gadgets have grown, we never really learned to love them. We've used them all these years only because they have made us more productive. But now that's changing. When computing devices are always with us, helping us to be the social beings we are, time spent "on the computer" no longer feels like time taken away from real life. And it isn't: cell phones, laptops, and the Web are rapidly becoming the best tools we have for staying connected to the people and ideas and activities that are important to us. The underlying hardware and software will never become invisible, but they will become less obtrusive, allowing us to focus our attention on the actual information being conveyed. Eventually, living in a world of continuous computing will be like wearing eyeglasses: the rims are always visible, but the wearer forgets she has them on--even though they're the only things making the world clear.

Social Software

How to Conquer Office Politics: Watch Your Back: Nine common political scenarios and how to deal with them.

Career Acceleration

Top 20 Things Recruiters Hate About Resumes.

Career Acceleration

Steve Pavlina, who blogs on "personal development for smart people" (sounds like a tag line I could use) writes on Using Online Communities Effectively. This article reads like a micro-summary of "The Virtual Handshake". For anyone who is an active user of online communities, it's worth reviewing this.

Social Software

FastCompany has just published an excerpt of our book on the ten basic steps necessary to take full advantage of online networks. The excerpt is called Leveraging Your Links. Years ago, when I interned for Procter & Gamble, we were told to never write a memo longer than one page. This excerpt is our book written on one page.

Social Software | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management

Peter Clayton, Senior Producer of Landed.fm, just posted a 27-minute podcast interview with me on the show, focused on how to use online networks for career acceleration, and particularly the job search. You can download the interview here. Landed.fm is the first internet radio career show. To quote from their 'about' page:

"While just 3.4 million Americans subscribe to satellite radio, about 19 million listen to Internet radio each week, according to research firms Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research." Source: Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2004 "Internet radio is quietly emerging as a mass-market phenomenon that attracts tens of millions of consumers on a weekly basis. Mainstream radio advertisers and trackers of terrestrial radio airplay are starting to take note.." Source: Billboard, June 26, 2004

In other words, regardless of your profession, internet radio is an increasingly important medium.

Social Software | Career Acceleration

From Katrina Resources - a Very Unofficial List, via BoingBoing: "Don't have an SMS-ready cellphone yourself? You can e-mail from a computer to an SMS-capable phone.

Here's E-mail to SMS addressing for major carriers:"

 # 1+AreaCode+MobileNumber@mobile.mycingular.com Cingular

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@mmode.com former AT&T users on Cingular

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@page.nextel.com Nextel

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com SprintPCS (US)

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@tmomail.net T-Mobile (US)

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@vtext.com Verizon (incl. AirTouch)

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@vmobl.com Virgin Mobile (US customers only)

 # AreaCode+MobileNumber@teleflip.com

 For all US cellphones with SMS (see Caveats below) For example, to SMS someone on T-Mobile with a phone number of 202-456-1212 send an email to 2024561212@tmomail.net More...

Personal Productivity | Social Software

Jim Stroud, a recruiter at Microsoft, author, and blogger, has podcasted two interviews with me. The first podcast is about how to use online networks for the job search, and the second podcast is about consulting opportunities with the Nitron Advisors Circle of Experts.

Social Software | Career Acceleration

In connection with research I did for my new book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, I worked with a variety of coauthors to write survey pieces on the ways that different special-interest communities build business relationships.

 I have posted these articles on the Virtual Handshake blog:

  + Networks in the U.S. Hispanic Community

 + Networks in the South Asian Diaspora Community

 + Russian American Networks

 + French-American Networks

 + Chinese-American Networks

We welcome your feedback, preferably in the "Comments" section of the Virtual Handshake blog.

General | Social Software