Community Guy Job Board Relaunched

February 13, 2009 By

People looking for jobs in the online community and social media space should check out Jake McKee’s Job Board, which he has just re-launched, in his words “newer and better”.

This is a gift also for employers seeking talented people for community and social media roles.

Look for the job board in the sidebar of Jake’s Community Guy site.

The board should be especially appealing to job seekers and employers insofar as Jake is not charging for the privilege of advertising such positions on his site or applying for them.

Just to be clear about that:

  • posting a job doesn’t cost a cent
  • applying for a job posted on the site doesn’t cost a cent

Community Guy Job Board screenshot

Some new features Jake listed in an email I received from him on the subject:

  • Employers: Searching & browsing resumes and candidates is now a core function
  • Employers: Posting and managing job openings is much easier
  • Employers: Alerts and updates to help you keep up with new candidate profiles
  • Seekers: Privacy options
  • Seekers: On-site resume creation for easier application

The key condition for advertising a position is that it is relevant to the field of online community or social media – which Jake interprets liberally – but expects people to use some judgement.

Filed Under: Social Media, Social networking Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Thought Leadership Webinar February 10

February 9, 2009 By

Larry Genkin's Thought Leadership Marketing Method (R) A couple of weeks ago I signed up to do a course on thought leadership. The course is for participants to learn the Thought Leadership Marketing Methodology (R), developed by Larry Genkin and taught by him to Fortune 500 companies, including eBay, American Express and Alcatel.

To be very frank, I’m still trying to figure out just what is meant or encompassed by the term “thought leadership”. Or, what makes someone a “thought leader”. I actually thought I knew, and in fact I, like other people who work in the social media field, have been in the habit of mentioning “establishing yourself as a thought leader” as one of the reasons for having a corporate blog and thus by definition A Good Thing To Do. That is in fact what I believe, but as I’ve been reading up on thought leadership I’ve found a variety of definitions and attempts at description.

For example, I found the opening “definitional” sentence of the Wikipedia entry on “thought leader” partially illuminating and a tad confusing at the same time:

Thought leader is a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among their peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets).

It was the odd word “thinklets” that made me go back and read it again and wonder seriously whether this definition or description could carry the day in a business context.

The next sentence, about “thought leadership” made “thought leader” sound like something more significant than “a buzzword or article of jargon etc”:

Thought leadership is an increasingly vital driver of business success.

Now that’s more interesting! I’m always interested in understanding and applying drivers of business success.

Questions of definition aside for a moment, Larry Genkin summed up for me, in the teleseminar I attended before deciding to sign up for the course, just why I thought this course could help me. In his words:

While most are working hard chasing business in this economy, Thought Leaders have business chasing them.

I’ve spent a lot of years chasing business and of course it is very pleasing when your chasing produces success. The idea of business chasing me is much more appealing.

So that’s why I’ve signed up as a student: to learn Larry’s system, so that I can have business find me rather than the other way around.

Larry will be explaining all this and more in a free webinar this week, on Tuesday Feb 10 at 8.00-9.30 pm Eastern time (US).

The title is:

Thought Leadership Marketing & The Power of Personal Branding:
Get Business to Chase You by Becoming the Top of Mind Expert in Your Industry

This is a no-pressure thing. In fact, there is a limit on the number able to sign up. You can read about the event and register here.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , ,

Setting Up a Community Site: #4 Focus

February 6, 2009 By

This post is a belated rounding out of the series on setting up a community site, which I started in 2008. The concept at that time was to establish a site under the title Social Media East and use the WordFrame platform. My concept has changed, but I’m finding that a lot of the thinking I did back then is still useful and I hope it will be useful for others.

I’d written four posts on the subject

Setting Up a Community Site: Introduction

Setting Up a Community Site: #1 Concept and Name

Setting Up a Community Site: #2 Purpose

Setting Up a Community Site: #3 People

That left one to go – on Focus. At the end of the post on People, I wrote that the focus of the project

…will not be something fixed: it will be subject to change. Whether the appropriate clarifying terminology for that is “movable feast”, “depends on circumstances” or “evolves over time” I’m not sure right now.

I then allowed myself to be distracted from the task, working on issues about the design and functionality of the site..

Since then, it’s not just the focus of the project that has changed. I’ve done a re-think of the whole project and am re-casting it completely, in line with some re-alignment of my coaching business.

In the intervening time I’ve also had the good fortune to read Patrick O’Keefe’s excellent book Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards which I reviewed here in November last year. One of the benefits of studying what Patrick had to say was that I was compelled to think through more fully my ideas about building and supporting a community.

Short story: I’m putting aside the Social Media East concept as a rationale for the site and proceeding to work on a fully revised concept, with the title Social Media Roadmap. More of that in due course.

I must add that I have in no way lost interest in the subject of social media as seen in and from the perspective of China, Japan, South-east Asia and Australasia. Far from it.

It’s really a matter of practical management of resources, especially my time, and getting a clearer alignment of my various online activities with my vision for my coaching business.

My thinking right now is that on the new Social Media Roadmap site I will have some sort of ordering of information by geographic region and/or countries.

The WordFrame platform will easily accommodate that sort of content management.

On the community building aspect, the revised concept and title of Social Media Roadmap will presumably mean that any community which develops will have some characteristics different from what the Social Media East concept might have attracted.

One unresolved question I have is what to do now with the domain socialmediaeast.com. Any takers?

Filed Under: Business, China, Social Media Tagged With: ,

Social Media Case Studies: Becky McCray

February 5, 2009 By

This is the second social media case study from my recent presentation at the Social Media Telesummit, the title of my session being Why Building Traffic Isn’t Enough: How to Become an A List Blogger in Your Niche.

This case study is courtesy of Becky McCray, whom I had the good fortune to meet last year at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas.

Maybe I haven’t ranged far enough on the Web, but I believe there is a real dearth of social media business stories from the rural and/or small town business sectors. So having Becky agree to tell some of her story was a boon and I hope will be an inspiration for others, as it is for me.

Some quick background.

Alva Oklahoma

Becky is from Alva, Oklahoma (pop. 5,288 at 2000 census) – county seat of Woods County (pop. 9,089).

Becky has a small ranch and a liquor store in town and somehow finds time also to produce the blog Small Biz Survival – “the rural and small town business resource”.  There are other authors at that blog but I can attest personally that Becky is a dedicated blogger. My mental picture of her the day we were leaving Las Vegas after the conference is of her sitting by the pool in the hotel courtyard, tapping away.

Here is what Becky sent in response to my questions.

(The photos are all from Becky and are licensed under Creative Commons.)

Blogging: How to Position Yourself as an Expert

Becky McCray

I’m probably an odd case study, because I have several blogs to talk about. There’s Small Biz Survival, which didn’t start to be a business promotion tool. I have another blog for my liquor store, which IS for promotion, and several others.

I wrote about this topic, positioning yourself as an expert, back in 2006 when I started blogging. You might find some useful additional comments there. (There’s also an awesome comment on that post from my earliest blog friend – Chris Brogan.)

D.  Has blogging been a key driver for your marketing strategy or just a minor component?

B.  Blogging has been only one of the marketing tools for my store. As it turns out, blogging has turned into the one key tool in positioning myself as an expert on small business.

D.  How has blogging helped you build your business? Or not?

B.  In the last year, two excellent customers came to my liquor store because they found our blog and were impressed with the content.

D.  What is the business/product/service you aim to promote through blogging/social media?

B.   Small Biz Survival now promotes my services as a speaker. My liquor store blog promotes the store. Interestingly, it has to promote walk-in traffic, because the law does not allow me to ship or deliver any orders.

D.   Would you recommend reading your competitors’ blogs, even those of your rivals, and if so why? Do you do this and if so does it help and how?

B.   You know, I really don’t have competitors who blog. My liquor store competition has no web presence. But I do read a bunch of small business blogs.

D.   Have you ever had blogger’s block and if so how do you beat it? Any tricks of the trade?

B.   I felt like I was running out of steam with business blogging in early 2006. Then I went to SXSW in March. I took a paper notebook. I made notes. That gave me panels to summarize, ideas to build on, and conversations to expand. So much for running out of steam! One of those resulting posts turned out to be my most popular ever. Since then, I’ve actively reported from all sorts of events. So my trick is to attend in-person events and get energized with ideas.

D.   We all talk about being transparent and authentic in our blogging – have you found that something that came easily or has it been a learning process: or don’t you bother? :)

I’m authentic all the way down to the ground, but I have a limit on transparency. I tend to keep my sensitive personal life personal. Other people are much more open about such things.

D.   If someone wants to be an A-list blogger in their chosen market niche, do you have any tips or advice, what to do, what not to do?

B.   Ah! Here’s where we work in my old article! Out of all the points in it, only the part about entering blog carnivals seems outdated. Now bookmarking and sharing sites are much more relevant.

My heartfelt thanks to Becky for her “from the trenches” responses to my questions and for the photos.

If by any chance Becky’s story does not resonate for you as it does for me (in case you hadn’t noticed, I am full of admiration for what she achieves), you might know someone doing it tough right now, or just getting by, with a rural or small town business, who might find it helps them see how social media could be useful for their business. Do them a favor – put them onto Becky’s Small Biz Survival. Can’t hurt and who knows, one day they might be blogging celebrities and thank you for that!

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ross Dawson’s Stimulus Package: Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 09

February 4, 2009 By

Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum banner

A one-day event in Sydney on February 24 provides a great opportunity for anyone wanting to get a handle on the current state of play with Web 2.0 in the enterprise, together with some informed prognostications for the year ahead.

It’s timely. The holidays are over, Australia Day has been and gone, the kids are back at school and it’s time to stack the beach towels and get serious about dealing with the R word.

Prime Minister Rudd and Treasurer Swan – still an unlikely duo even, for all the spin we’ve had telling us they are mates – were not being tardy last night, doing their Santa Rings Twice number, throwing great bundles of dosh at banks, businesses and even the employed who don’t have enough of it to get themselves and the kids to Disneyland this year. See PM Kevin Rudd goes for broke with $42bn stimulus package.

If that helps save some jobs I’m not complaining, but I’m wondering what longer term solutions there are for people and businesses.

As in, something to do with technology.

For starters, futurist, Web 2.0 maven and general tech enthusiast Ross Dawson and his Future Exploration Network are offering, in their Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum, a package which looks to me as if it is geared to working not just for immediate stimulus but for long term productivity and profitability.

The tag line is “Implementing web technologies to transform organisations”.

Outcomes? The event website’s promise is:

Participants will leave the Forum with the latest global insights into creating value with Enterprise 2.0, as well as the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 Report: a clear roadmap for successful implementation and building competitive advantage.

Going by previous Future Exploration Network (FEN) events I’ve attended, including the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum this time last year, also at Luna Park in Sydney, there should be a good blend of:

  • knowledgeable presenters doing their thing
  • lively discussion and idea-sharing via the participant roundtable sessions (eat fast or you won’t get a word in)
  • live blogging
  • lots of tweeting

I’ll be there, blogging it – and tweeting it.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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