“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR LinkedIn; BUT WHAT LinkedIn CAN DO FOR YOU!”

Although I’ve been a LinkedIn user for only 1.468 years, I’m pretty sure that among the 10 reasons for not joining LinkedIn listed in my previous blog, the site can execute ALL 10. Let me know if I’m wrong. My take on LinkedIn’s purposes is boiled down to the following five.

FIVE PURPOSES OF LinkedIn

1. Display your professional credentials to promote your expertise and job-hiring potential

2. Communicate with professional group members, colleagues, clients, and students all over the world on any topic

3. Market your business, whether individual consulting or a large corporation, or products to obtain clients

4. Search for a job, while employers search for you as a candidate to fill a position

5. Search for the best candidates to fill positions in your business or institution

So how does this affect your professional life as you now know it? Consider the fit between the major purposes for using LinkedIn and your professional needs. Will it make your life easier, add or create opportunities you want to pursue, expand your professional aspirations? Only you can answer that.

COMMITMENT TIME
Remember that LinkedIn is just a tool or vehicle to do the above. If you don’t commit to using it properly, the preceding purposes may not be realized. It provides FREE professional services (of course, there are upgrades) you can use to propel yourself forward in your career. Once you take the time to set up your profile (and we can do that together), it will require only a few minutes a week to update and keep your activities visible to your network.

C & P YOUR CV
Now that your head is beginning to spin like the kid in the Exorcist about your career and whether LinkedIn is worth your time, trust me on this: IT IS! Let’s do this together. The best part of this profile posting is that you already have most of the information in your résumé or curriculum vitae (CV). [SIDEBAR DEFINITION: If you’re a nonacademician, the term “curriculum vitae” is Latin for “résumé on steroids.” It typically contains education, previous employment, grants & contracts, publications, presentations, patents, professional membership & leadership, editorial boards, expert witness testimony, financial portfolio, pets & livestock, and other pertinent activities. It averages 1000 pages. The longer it is, the more impressive and pretentious it is.] I NOW RESUME THIS PARAGRAPH, WITHOUT ACUTE ACCENTS ON RESUME, ALREADY IN PROGRESS. Most of your CV will be pasted into LinkedIn’s format. You can do this.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

“A BUNCH OF 1ST CLASS OPENERS THAT WILL ROCK YOUR STUDENTS’ iPADS!”

So what are you going to do? Have you decided? How are you opening your class? If you were one of the new bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students in your class, what would excite and impress you in class numero uno, other than your limited Spanish vocabulary? Here are a few ideas to break your 1st class mold wide open:

 As you open the flood gates and the students start pouring into the room, greet each student at the door

 Have music playing as they are searching for seats in the back of the room and settling down

 If the air conditioning is on the fritz and the temp is 90 or above, pass out autographed head bands to absorb their buckets of secreted bodily fluids

 Start class from the back of the room instead of standing at the lectern to grab their attention and watch their head-banded heads spin around like the kid in the Exorcist

 Blackout the room for dramatic effect and begin with

•  a pre-recorded welcome (on a black PowerPoint slide)
•  special music the students would know
• a video clip with a relevant point
• an hilarious video clip from YouTube
• a parody of a popular movie or TV program scene or image (e.g., Avatar, Glee)
• an impersonation of a well-known personality
• a creative, relevant rap

Any one or more of the above openers will charge (or “jack”) your students more than a can of Red Bull or will knock them loopy. I’m not sure of the final effect. There must be something you can do with your unique gifts and talents that will create an amazing opening. It’s like teaching in a gorilla suit on Halloween.

What opener have you always wanted to try, but were afraid to do? If you can sing, play an instrument, or perform the finale from Riverdance, do it. Boggle your students. Set yourself apart from the rest of the pack. Be bold. Take a swig of Red Bull, if you need it. Kidding. You’ll need more than one swig. Think hard and release your inhibited self and repressed, but, probably, fertile, imagination.

These techniques can make your opening memorable and, possibly, unforgettable, plus they can set the tone for what’s coming next. You do have something planned for the rest of the class, right? You better hurry and think of an activity quickly or you’ll be nailed to the whiteboard.

Let me know what unusual opening you tried and your students’ reaction.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC