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
Here’s the final ingredient in your recipe for an effective elevator spiel:
3. FOLLOW-UP (How can you follow-up and maintain contact?): Most first-time encounters are superficial how-do-you-do events with no follow-up. You probably will see them again only in your dreams. Here we’re trying to build relationships. You need to go one step further to continue the initial contact. Make an effort to follow-up. At the end, don’t forget to
a. ask for a business card, e-mail address, or info on the session he or she is presenting so you can attend,
b. give an invitation to join your LinkedIn professional network, your session at the conference, a reception your institution is sponsoring, or to collaborate on something, and/or
c. schedule a follow-up meeting at the conference, preferably over a beverage or food.
Example 1: “I’ll be doing a session here tomorrow on that topic at 1:30. Here’s my card. May I have your card? I’ll contact you about joining my network on LinkedIn so we can stay in touch. I hope to see you at my session tomorrow.” (Note follow-ups with session invite, card, LinkedIn, and session reminder.)
Example 2: “I’m doing a workshop on a few of them on Thurs. at 10AM. Here’s my card. Do you have a card? Let me know if I can help your faculty. Here’s an invitation to my university’s reception tonight. See you there.” (Note card and invites to session, to help, and to reception.)
What do you think? Are the examples and focus of the spiel any different than what you’re already doing? Let me know your thoughts.
The next blog in this series will tie these examples together and address the delivery of the speech. There will also be a bonus example suggested. See you Mon. It’s time for a snack.
Have a blast this weekend! Also, don’t forget to set your watches and clocks to daylight savings time, if that applies; otherwise, you’ll be an hour late to my blog. Buhbye!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
As a follow-up to yesterday’s list of faculty comments on their resistance to attend teaching events with or without speakers on teaching methods, this blog will proffer some practical, “successful” ideas to increase attendance. They are derived from the experiences of faculty developers over the past decade, plus a sprinkling of marketing techniques I’ve learned over the past couple of years.
A DOZEN STRATEGIES TO INCREASE ATTENDANCE
Here are a few suggestions you might want to consider. You may have tried many of these already. I hope there’s 1 useful idea in the list:
• Conduct an anonymous, short, online survey to determine topics that interest them; give them ideas to check off. (Note: If they don’t respond, shrug it off, dust yourself off, and start all over again. After shrugging and dusting, elicit ideas from your peer developers at similar institutions and don’t use “off” 20 times in a sentence.)
• Pick topics in which faculty have interest or need information based on the survey results
• Package the event so that it is salable; make believe you’re Steve Jobs promoting the latest iGizmo.
- Provide adequate info on each workshop, including title, detailed abstract, speaker bio and pic, links to speaker’s publications, Websites, blogs, etc.
- Select a title that will grab their attention, not an “academic” title
- Post an abstract that will pique their interest and suck them in
- Prepare copy like a business marketer, not academician
- Send out multiple announcements and reminders that are worded differently; be creative; use a video promotion
• Tease or encourage attendance with special perks, such as free books from the speaker or a trip to Hawaii
• Require registration at each workshop to provide the illusion of importance; that will also help you to gauge deployment of personnel and resources
• Open the workshops to staff on topics of broader appeal, such as coping with stress, time management techniques, how to conduct meetings, and suggested activities during furloughs
• Promote aggressively to area institutions to increase attendance and build positive PR with those institutions; request their financial support; you’ll get the regional reputation for quality workshops and speakers
Please let me know your experience with any of the above. Suggestions are also welcome to share with others.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
