Presentations in March

So far I have two presentations scheduled in March on The Modern Resume: Building Your Brand.

The first is at the Colorado Springs SQL Server User's Group on March 18th in Colorado Springs, CO.

The second is for the Charlotte SQL Server User's Group. I won't be traveling to North Caroline, but I'll do a remote presentation over the lunch hour for them on March 18th as well at 12 noon EST. Visit their site for information on registering.

Branding Yourself - Public Speaking

Paul Randal is a great presented in the SQL Server/database space and he usually draws large crowds. Some of it is his knowledge, but he's also very entertaining and I think that goes a long way as well. I noticed that he recently wrote a post on Public Speaking, which I think has some great advice.

There are two things that I'd like to comment on. First, take feedback well. You won't please everyone, but before you dismiss someone's complaint, take a moment to look at it and consider if there is something to learn there. You might find something you can improve on, but don't feel that you have to. You won't please everyone, so be sure that you don't feel you have to change your delivery to address every piece of feedback.

The other thing is branding. You want to be careful about pushing yourself or your work in the presentation. A casual mention is fine, show the URL for your site, your logo, etc. I typically open my presentation by showing the various things I'm involved with, I might make a comment about one of them so that people know what they are, but I don't spend more than a minute on them. Let your work speak for itself.

It's also better to maybe mention things at the end if possible.

I'd recommend you read the post if you are interested in speaking at all.

Presenting at the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta

I presented last Saturday, February 21, 2009, at the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta. My session was one of the last ones of the day, and I'm sure with great weather in Denver (50F+) and a Saturday, there were people that decided to head out other than listen to my ramble on about branding.

I had one repeat, Marc Beacom from the Denver SQL Server User's Group, but other than that quite a mix of older and younger people. The stats from my surveys:

32 attendees
Percentage on Myspace - 0%
Percentage on Facebook - 15%
Percentage on LinkedIn - 40%
Percentage on Plaxo - 5%
Percentage on Twitter - 10%

People writing a technical blog: 1/32
People reading technical blogs: about 25 of 32

Again most people didn't know too many of the authors, but they did at least know Kalen Delaney.

Blogging Software - Live Spaces

Setting up a blog is easy these days with a variety of free and low-cost services out there. I highly recommend you take advantage of one of these services to start building your brand and enhancing your resume.

Live Spaces, the offering from MSN and Microsoft, isn't one I recommend. In fact, I recommend you don't use it for a technical blog. It works great for your personal blog, but not a career based one.

Why not?

I was using Live Writer, which I do recommend, to compose something the other day. One of my 5 blogs is at Live Spaces and I wanted to get a few updates done. So I finished one and went to schedule it a few days out. My goal is to try and blog regularly, which means that I might schedule some in advance to keep the site changing and interesting.

To my surprise I couldn't schedule things out. The error message informed me that this blog service didn't support future publishing.

Huh?

That's a basic feature, one even my home grown blog software supported.

Frankly I was stunned, and while a personal blog is fine for real-time publishing I think that you might want to put out regular updates on your career blog and that requires scheduling.

Or incredible discipline.

Boulder SQL Server User Group Presentation

Last night I went to the February Boulder SQL Server User’s Group meeting up in Broomfield, CO to deliver my presentation on The Modern Resume. It was a windy, chilly day where few people were wandering about. Perhaps President Obama being in town had something to do with it as well.

In any case, it was a small group, <>

It was also a bit different than my other talks. This time I had more talks about “finding a job strategies” than building your brand. That’s OK, and it gave me some other content to talk about. It seems the Dice and Monster are still the places most people go to.

My author survey again showed that most people didn’t know what the people look like. The social networking survey showed about 50% of the people on Linked In and Facebook, no one on MySpace, 15% using Twitter. Plaxo had a couple people with accounts, but not really using it.

In any case, this was good practice for my delivery on Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta.

Boulder SQL Server Users Group

Last night I went to the February Boulder SQL Server User’s Group meeting up in Broomfield, CO to deliver my presentation on The Modern Resume. It was a windy, chilly day where few people were wandering about. Perhaps President Obama being in town had something to do with it as well.

In any case, it was a small group, < 10 people, and a fairly intimate setting. I was hoping for a bit more of a discussion, which we got later on, but ended up with much of the talk being a lecture.

It was also a bit different than my other talks. This time I had more talks about “finding a job strategies” than building your brand. That’s OK, and it gave me some other content to talk about. It seems the Dice and Monster are still the places most people go to.

My author survey again showed that most people didn’t know what the people look like. The social networking survey showed about 50% of the people on Linked In and Facebook, no one on MySpace, 15% using Twitter. Plaxo had a couple people with accounts, but not really using it.

In any case, this was good practice for my delivery on Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta.

How Not to Start Blogging

Someone posted this resignation letter on Twitter. At first I thought this was from a colleague and was fairly shocked, but as I read through it, I realized this was someone that started a blog with the letter.

Now I’ve posted a resignation letter I wrote before, and I’m not necessarily opposed to this happening, but I think that this is an example of how not to do this. I hope this person doesn’t keep their career blog going with this.

Why?

I went back and looked at my letter, which was internal, but has since been posted on the Internet. In my letter I tried to outline the problems that I saw with the company, and give reasons why I thought these were problems. I didn’t blame anyone by name, but I did thank people by name. That goes along with the idea that you blame generally and praise specifically.

In this letter, the writer is obviously upset, and with specific people that are mentioned by name. While I can understand the issues that people have with their co-workers and we often have bad experiences at work, you can complain, vent, or write about them without specifically mentioning people’s names. While I might be concerned if I had to interview (or be interviewed by) and of the people mentioned, I’d definitely be concerned with someone that called people out by name.

Get Ahead of the Game

I write almost every day, but I still can find it hard to keep up with all my commitments. I have really 4 blogs and while I cross post where appropriate, it's still a lot to do.

One of the things I think is important in building your brand online is that you need to show you're making regular progress. You show that you are constantly improving at whatever rate makes sense for you, but that you are making progress in your career. Or in the case of a business, that your business is moving forward, you’re thinking and you are trying to get better.

Blogging is a great way to do this, but it is work. And it’s regular work.

My suggestion for anyone, whether you like to write or not, is to make yourself a meeting once a week and spend an hour or two just writing about some issue, some problem, something you’ve learned or tried and then explain it to someone that’s trying to do what you do.

Then schedule those out. Get a good pipeline going, which will be different for everyone, depending on how often you write and how quickly you finish things, but once you have 4-6 items done, then schedule them out. At least once every two weeks, but preferably once a week, showing that you are making progress in your endeavors.

That pipeline will help you and over time you’ll probably build that up to even more items, but be sure that you don’t change your publication schedule until you can maintain a good pipeline to stay ahead of the game.

Ways To Build Your Brand

This is in the presentation I've given a few times, but I thought it made some sense to put these things out here as well.

I see there are a few major ways for you to build your brand and raise your profile in the modern world that is highly interconnected and built on digital technologies. I'll give a quick summary here and then expand upon each of these in future posts.

1. Blogging
2. Leadership
3. Authoring
4. Speaking
5. Volunteering

There are some variations, but these are the main ones.

Blogging

I separated this one out because it's more personal, it's off the cuff, we allow for mistakes and it doesn't necessarily mean exposing yourself. You can blog offline, save the entries and then publish them only to perspective employers when they interview you. I do think you should have a career blog that shows off what you think, learn, do, and understand.
And you don't have to be a great writer!

Leadership

You can be a leader in your company, be a manager, run a project, be a thought leader, but this involves taking responsibility on to help others (or things in the case of a project).

Authoring

This is a step above blogging where you are showing what you know. This is definitely public presentations of your work. It can be within the company, perhaps working on a manual, a procedure, or something else formal that others will read, but your name is attached to it.

Speaking

A step beyond authoring is when you actually teach someone. This can be one on one in your company, a brown bag lunch to your peers, or standing in front of a group at a conference.

Volunteering

I think the last stage of your career in anything is giving back to the community. You've built some expertise, you're comfortable, and so you now have the time and freedom to help others. This doesn't mean leading them, but giving them assistance. It can be speaking, running a group or event, or even working with a charity of some sort.

Take credit for it, use it for your brand, but be sincere. Don't do it because you want recognition, but do it because you want to help.

I'll talk more about each of these in future posts as I further the develop the ideas and get more of them down on paper.