January 2013 Jokes

Here are the jokes for January 2013. Thanks for reading and laughing (or groaning)!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy



Two guys driving west on Hwy. 94 when they pass the sign that says "Oconomowoc."
Neither guy knows how to pronounce it.
After arguing back and forth about how to pronounce the name of the town they drive into a restaurant in town.
They go up to the person behind the counter and ask:
"How do we pronounce where we are?"
The counter person says:
"Bur-ger King"

A man was going to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the shed.
The man opened the door to go turn off the light but saw there were people in the shed in the process of stealing things.

 

He immediately phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" and the man said no and explained the situation.
The police explained that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be there when available.

The man said, "Okay," hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I've just shot them all."

Then he hung up. Within five minutes three squad cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the policemen said to the man: "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

The man said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"
(Ev note: give the flap about Sheriff David Clark's comments I thought this joke was timely)

A  couple decided to vacation to Florida during the winter. They planned to stay at the very same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left  and flew to Florida on Thursday. His wife would fly down the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her e-mail address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail.

Meanwhile.....somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who was called home to glory following a sudden heart attack. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she fainted.

The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've Arrived
Date: 16 May 2012
I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is not as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is hot down here!

January 2013 Newsletter

Greetings!

It’s 2013!

Of the 12 monthly email newsletters I send out, December is by far the most popular.

Enjoy the links and topics for this month.

Feel free to search my blog for other topics you’re interested in.

Stay Warm! 

Why I write This Blog and Email?

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-i-write-this-blog.html

2012 Year-In-Review:  (One of my most popular posts every year)

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/2012-in-review.html

Recruit Anyone on LinkedIn:

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/recruit-anyone-on-linkedin.html

Recruit Anyone Using Twitter:

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/using-twitter-to-recruit.html

Recruit Anyone Using Facebook:

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/using-facebook-to-recruit.html

Jokes:

http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/december-2012-jokes.html

Everet Kamikawa

"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

You are receiving this newsletter because you at one time have done business with me as either a client or prospect, or perhaps just a stalker (don’t laugh I’ve had three). This email comes out once per month and is meant to be informative and light hearted. If it really annoys you, causes you to step on sidewalk cracks, go into the basement without shoes, run with scissors, or sit too close to the TV, please send me an email asking to be removed from the monthly list.  Please tell me if you only want to be removed from the list, or if I should never ever call you again and why. I will call you to follow up! Thank you for reading!

Perfect Job Interview in 8 Simple Steps

I teach interviewing techniques to job seekers.
This is a nice article reviewing what you need to do. Any tips you can suggest?
I'll see you in February when I'm back from vacation.
Thanks!
Ev

The Perfect Job Interview in 8 Simple Steps
Jeff Haden

Ghostwriter and Inc.com columnist

You landed the interview. Awesome! Now don't screw it up.
I've interviewed thousands of people for jobs ranging from entry-level to executive. Easily  three-fourths of the candidates made basic interviewing mistakes.

Did I still hire some of them? Absolutely... but never count on your qualifications and experience to outweigh a bad interview.

Here are eight practical ways to shine:

1. Be likable. Obvious? And critical. Making a great first impression and establishing a real connection is everything. Smile, make eye contact, be enthusiastic, sit forward in your chair, use the interviewer's name.... Be yourself, but be the best version of yourself you possibly can. We all want to work with people we like and who like us. Use that basic fact to your advantage. Few candidates do.
2. Never start the interview by saying you want the job. Why? Because you don't know yet. False commitment is, well, false. Instead...
3. Ask questions about what really matters to you. (Here are five questions great job candidates ask.) Focus on making sure the job is a good fit: Who you will work with, who you will report to, the scope of responsibilities, etc. Interviews should always be two-way, and interviewers respond positively to people as eager as they are to find the right fit. Plus there's really no other way to know you want the job. And don't be afraid to ask several questions. As long as you don't take completely take over, the interviewer will enjoy and remember a nice change of pace.
4. Set a hook. A sad truth of interviewing is that later we often don't remember a tremendous amount about you -- especially if we've interviewed a number of candidates for the same position. Later we might refer to you as, "The guy with the alligator briefcase," or, "The lady who did a Tough Mudder," or, "The guy who grew up in Panama." Sometimes you may be identified by hooks, so use that to your advantage. Your hook could be clothing (within reason), or an outside interest, or an unusual fact about your upbringing or career. Hooks make you memorable and create an anchor for interviewers to remember you by -- and being memorable is everything.
5. Know what you can offer immediately. Researching the company is a given; go a step farther and find a way you can hit the ground running or contribute to a critical area. If you have a specific technical skill, show how it can be leveraged immediately. But don't say, for example, "I would love to be in charge of revamping your social media marketing." One, that's fairly presumptuous, and two, someone may already be in charge. Instead, share details regarding your skills and say you would love to work with that team. If there is no team, great -- you may be put in charge. If there is a team you haven't stepped on any toes or come across as pushy. Just think about what makes you special and show the benefits to the company. The interviewer will be smart enough to recognize how the project you bring can be used.
6. Don't create negative sound bites. Interviewers will only remember a few sound bites, especially negative ones. If you've never been in charge of training, don't say, "I've never been in charge of training." Say, "I did not fill that specific role, but I have trained dozens of new hires and created several training guides." Basically, never say, "I can't," or "I haven't," or "I don't." Share applicable experience and find the positives in what you have done. No matter what the subject, be positive: Even your worst mistake can be your best learning experience.
7. Ask for the job based on facts. By the end of the interview you should have a good sense of whether you want the job. If you need more information, say so. Otherwise use your sales skills and ask for the job. (Don't worry; we like when you ask.) Focus on specific aspects of the job: Explain you work best with teams, or thrive in unsupervised roles, or get energized by frequent travel.... Ask for the job and use facts to prove you want it -- and deserve it.
8. Reinforce a connection with your follow-up. Email follow-ups are fine; handwritten notes are better; following up based on something you learned during the interview is best: An email including additional information you were asked to provide, or a link to a subject you discussed (whether business or personal.) The better the interview -- and more closely you listened -- the easier it will be to think of ways you can make following up seem natural and unforced. And make sure you say thanks -- never underestimate the power of gratitude.

In order to sell to the best of your ability, you need to have the backing of your company and enjoy the company you represent because to the customer YOU are the company. If you have an enjoyable environment to work in it shows in the rest of your sales process.

I'm on vacation until February. Thanks for reading!

Ev

What I got wrong in the Peanut Butter Manifesto

Brad Garlinghouse

CEO at YouSendIt

what-i-got-wrong-in-the-peanut-butter-manifesto

In 2006, as an executive at Yahoo! I wrote an internal memo outlining my observations about the state of the company and suggesting some dramatic remedies for getting it back on track. The primary point was that the company lacked a cohesive vision and I used the metaphor of spreading peanut butter to describe how Yahoo! was investing too thinly in too many different areas.

Some months later the memo was leaked to the Wall Street Journal and for better or worse, “the Peanut Butter Manifesto” has followed me ever since. Its essence even lives on at Yahoo! in new CEO Marissa Mayer’s PB&J program—one of the many important steps she’s taking to rebuild a great company.
Reflecting on what I wrote more than six years ago, it’s now painfully obvious to me that the issues I highlighted—lack of focus, accountability and decisiveness—were actually just symptoms of a deeper problem. Yahoo!’s strength had emanated from the passion and entrepreneurial zeal of its employees, but these muscles had atrophied. The company’s core culture no longer encouraged and celebrated innovation with the same zest and ardent ambition to change the world—too often this had been displaced by half-hearted maintenance of the status quo.
Marissa’s immediate focus on improving the company culture to make Yahoo! a great place to work again is evidence that this inertia endured. Though people can deride perks like free food and iPhones (or giving everyone an iPad mini for Christmas!) as buying loyalty with trinkets and toys, there is an underlying—and more fundamental—impact.

Whether you give people the latest gadget or deck your office space with beanbags and foosball tables, the point is to make work a fun, interesting and inspirational place to be. The Shower Principle (thank you, Jack Donaghy) states that great solutions are often conceived when your mind is not focused on the problem. Sometimes interactions need to happen beyond the ping of an email or the (god forbid) drone of a PowerPoint presentation.

There’s also the paradox of treating people like adults by providing them with toys. Just as freedom is always accompanied by responsibility, so permission to play comes with high expectations to deliver remarkable results. A vibrant culture provides people with real opportunities to instigate and benefit from success. They must also be accountable for failure, though all parties need to accept that attempts to innovate don’t always produce the wheel. This is the kind of place where creative, ambitious people want to play. When imaginations are encouraged to run free, it can result in amazing products.

In a recent blog post, venture capitalist Ben Horowitz relegated corporate culture to a second-class citizen behind creating a great product. I respectfully disagree. Great products don’t come out of thin air. They are an outcome of environments where innovation can thrive and talented people are encouraged to be bold.
Sure, one-hit wonders can happen anywhere, but companies that stand the test of time all recognize a fundamental truth: great people build great products and great people gravitate towards great company cultures. The startup culture that Steve Jobs created at Apple to transform a declining computer manufacturer into the creator of era-defining products is an obvious example.

So more than six years after the Peanut Butter Manifesto, what has experience taught me?
If a business has to be told that it needs more focus, accountability and decisiveness, there is a bigger problem at hand. Truly successful businesses encourage these qualities innately by creating and fostering a culture that inspires each individual to perform at their peak and rewards passion and results without peanut buttering the end of year bonus.

This is the mantra I have been repeating since I became CEO at YouSendIt in May 2012. Turning a good company with a good product into something great starts with cultural change and we’ve made remarkable progress over the past seven months. How this happens is something I will explore in future posts.

Oh, there’s one final lesson: you never know when something you write is going to unexpectedly be published in the Wall Street Journal. So watch those split infinitives.

7 Habits of Unsuccessful Executives

I'm on vacation for the month of January. I'll be back the first Monday of February.
In the meantime I thought this was an article that was dead on.
Stay warm!
Ev

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives
by
Eric Jackson
seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives

Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, published “Why Smart Executives Fail” 8 years ago.
In it, he shared some of his research on what over 50 former high-flying companies – like Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Rubbermaid, and Schwinn – did to become complete failures.  It turns out that the senior executives at the companies all had 7 Habits in common.  Finkelstein calls them the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.
These traits can be found in the leaders of current failures like Research In Motion (RIMM), but they should be early-warning signs (cautionary tales) to currently unbeatable firms like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon.com (AMZN).  Here are the habits, as Finkelstein described in a 2004 article:

Habit # 1:  They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment

This first habit may be the most insidious, since it appears to be highly desirable.  Shouldn’t a company try to dominate its business environment, shape thefuture of its markets and set the pace within them?  Yes,but there’s a catch.  Unlike successful leaders, failed leaders who never question their dominance fail torealize they are at the mercy of changing circumstances.They vastly overestimate the extent to which they actually control events and vastly underestimate the role of chance and circumstance in their success.

CEOs who fall prey to this belief suffer from the illusion of personal pre-eminence: Like certain film directors, they see themselves as the auteurs of their companies.  As far as they’re concerned, everyone else in the company is there to execute their personal visionfor the company.  Samsung’s CEO Kun-Hee Lee was so successful with electronics that he thought he could repeat this success with automobiles.  He invested $5 billion in an already oversaturated auto market.  Why? There was no business case.  Lee simply loved cars and had dreamed of being in the auto business.
Warning Sign for #1:  A lack of respect

Habit #2:  They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests

Like the first habit, this one seems innocuous, perhaps even beneficial.  We want business leaders to be completely committed to their companies, with their interests tightly aligned with those of the company.  But digging deeper, you find that failed executives weren’t identifying too little with the company, but rather too much.  Instead of treating companies as enterprises that they needed to nurture, failed leaders treated them as extensions of themselves.  And with that, a “private empire” mentality took hold.

CEOs who possess this outlook often use their companies to carry out personal ambitions.  The most slippery slope of all for these executives is their tendency to use corporate funds for personal reasons.  CEOs who have a long or impressive track record may come to feel that they’ve made so much money for the company that the expenditures they make on themselves, even if extravagant, are trivial by comparison.  This twisted logic seems to have been one of the factors that shaped the behavior of Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco.  His pride in his company and his pride in his own extravagance seem to have reinforced each other.  This is why he could sound so sincere making speeches about ethics while using corporate funds for personal purposes. Being the CEO of a sizable corporation today is probably the closest thing to being king of your own country, and that’s a dangerous title to assume.
Warning Sign for #2: A question of character

Habit #3:  They think they have all the answers

Here’s the image of executive competence that we’ve been taught to admire for decades: a dynamic leader making a dozen decisions a minute, dealing with many crises simultaneously, and taking only seconds to size up situations that have stumped everyone else for days. The problem with this picture is that it’s a fraud. Leaders who are invariably crisp and decisive tend to settle issues so quickly they have no opportunity to grasp the ramifications. Worse, because these leaders need to feel they have all the answers, they aren’t open to learning new ones.
CEO Wolfgang Schmitt of Rubbermaid was fond of demonstrating his ability to sort out difficult issues in a flash. A former colleague remembers that under Schmitt,” the   joke   went, ‘Wolf  knows everything about everything.’  In one discussion, where we were talking about a particularly complex acquisition we made in Europe, Wolf, without hearing different points of view, just said, ‘Well, this is what we are going to do.’”  Leaders who need to have all the answers shut out other points of view. When your company or organization is run by someone like this, you’d better hope the answers he comes up with are going to be the right ones.  At Rubbermaid they weren’t.  The company went from being Fortune’s most admired company in America in1993 to being acquired by the conglomerate Newell a few years later.
Warning Sign for #3:  A leader without followers

Habit #4:  They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them
CEOs who think their job is to instill belief in their vision also think that it is their job to get everyone to buy into it.  Anyone who doesn’t rally to the cause is undermining the vision.  Hesitant managers have a choice: Get with the plan or leave.
The problem with this approach is that it’s both unnecessary and destructive. CEOs don’t need to have everyone unanimously endorse their vision to have it carried out successfully.  In fact, by eliminating all dissenting and contrasting viewpoints, destructive CEOs cut themselves off from their best chance of seeing and correcting problems as they arise.  Sometimes CEOs who seek to stifle dissent only drive it underground. Once this happens, the entire organization falters.  At Mattel, Jill Barad removed her senior lieutenants if she thought they harbored serious reservations about the way that she was running things.  Schmitt created such a threatening atmosphere at Rubbermaid that firings were often unnecessary.  When new executives realized that they’d get no support from the CEO, many of them left almost as fast as they’d come on board.  Eventually, these CEOs had everyone on their staff completely behind them. But where they were headed was toward disaster.  And no one was left to warn them.
Warning Sign for #4:  Executive departures

Habit #5: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image
You know these CEOs: high-profile executives whoare constantly in the public eye.  The problem is that amid all the media frenzy and accolades, these leaders’ management efforts become shallow and ineffective. Instead of actually accomplishing things, they often settle for the appearance of accomplishing things.

Behind these media darlings is a simple fact of executive life: CEOs don’t achieve a high level of media attention without devoting themselves assiduously to public relations.  When CEOs are obsessed with their image, they have little time for operational details. Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski sometimes intervened in remarkably minor matters, but left most of  the company’s day-to-day operations unsupervised.
As a final negative twist, when CEOs make the company’s image their top priority, they run the risk of using financial-reporting practices to promote that image.  Instead of treating their financial accounts as a control tool, they treat them as a public-relations tool. The creative accounting that was apparently practiced by such executives as Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling or Tyco’sKozlowski is as much or more an attempt to promote the company’s image as it is to deceive the public: In their eyes, everything that the company does is public relations.
Warning Sign of #5:  Blatant attention-seeking

Habit #6: They underestimate obstacles
Part of the allure of being a CEO is the opportunity to espouse a vision. Yet, when CEOs become so enamored of their vision, they often overlook or underestimate the difficulty of actually getting there.  And when it turns out that the obstacles they casually waved aside are more troublesome than they anticipated, these CEO have a habit of plunging full-steam into the abyss.  For example, when Webvan’s core business was racking up huge losses, CEO George Shaheen was busy expanding those operations at an awesome rate.

Why don’t CEOs in this situation re-evaluate their course of action, or at least hold back for a while until it becomes clearer whether their policies will work?  Some feel an enormous need to be right in every important decision they make, because if they admit to being fallible, their position as CEO might seem precarious. Once a CEO admits that he or she made the wrong call, there will always be people who say the CEO wasn’t up to the job.  These unrealistic expectations make it exceedingly hard for a CEO to pull back from any chosen course of action, which not surprisingly causes them to push that much harder.  That’s why leaders at Iridium and Motorola (MMI) kept investing billions of dollars to launch satellites even after it had become apparent that land-based cellphones were a better alternative.
Warning Sign of #6:  Excessive hype

Habit #7: They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past
Many CEOs on their way to becoming spectacularly unsuccessful accelerate their company’s decline by reverting to what they regard as tried-and-true methods. In their desire to make the most of what they regard as their core strengths, they cling to a static business model.They insist on providing a product to a market that no longer exists, or they fail to consider innovations in areas other than those that made the company successful in the past. Instead of considering a range of options that fit new circumstances, they use their own careers as the only point of reference and do the things that made them successful in the past.  For example, when Jill Barad was trying to promote educational software at Mattel,she used the promotional techniques that had been effective for her when she was promoting Barbie dolls, despite the fact that software is not distributed or bought the way dolls are.

Frequently, CEOs who fall prey to this habit owe their careers to some “defining moment,” a critical decision or policy choice that resulted in their most notable success.  It’s usually the one thing that they’re most known for and the thing that gets them all of their subsequent jobs.  The problem is that after people have had the experience of that defining moment, if they become the CEO of a large company, they allow their defining moment to define the company as well – no matter how unrealistic it has become.
Warning Sign of #7:  Constantly referring to what worked in the past

The bottom line: If you exhibit several of these traits, now is the time to stamp them out from your repertoire.  If your boss or several senior executives at your company exhibit several of these traits, now is the time to start looking for a new job.
[Jackson was long AAPL at time of writing]

I'm still on vacation.
Thanks Laura for the great article!
Ev

Quick Fixes To Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

By Laura Smith-Proulx

When you first joined LinkedIn, it made sense to fill out quick facts to get the profile up and running, just to start connecting with others.
However, if it’s been a few months and you still have a bare-bones profile, the less likely it will generate any results for your job search, and even if it does attract visitors, they’ll quickly leave to find someone more interesting.
The reality about LinkedIn is this: it’s an amazing job search tool that brings you new leads, impresses your network, and entices recruiters to call — but only if you use it in a way that promotes your professional image.
Look at these types of problems to see if you recognize yours – and take action to improve your LinkedIn profile before it brings your job search to a halt:

Problem #1: The Minimal-Effort Profile

Here it is—your name, college education, and current job. Wait – where’s the rest?
If you haven’t added specifics (such as your full work history for the last 10 years, certifications, or skills), your hit rate among competing candidates will drop substantially. This is because your profile, just like a website, is findable based on the keywords sprinkled throughout the text.
Employers and recruiters scouring LinkedIn for talent also look for context that demonstrates your ability to perform at a particular career level. To satisfy them, you’ll need to add competencies, success stories, and metrics, with detail that resembles (but doesn’t replace) your full resume.
Even in the tight space allowed on the site, readers will then be able to identify your likely next career target and suitability for promotion – which not only improves your LinkedIn profile, but encourages others to network with you.

Problem #2: The Default Headline

LinkedIn has many shortcuts that allow you to quickly fill in crucial data. Most of these are helpful in presenting a polished, professional look to other site users—but the default Headline feature isn’t one of them.
When you specify the details of your current job, LinkedIn will ever-so-subtly include a checkbox that is already set to Update My Headline to (your job title). If you leave this information as is, site users will see “Bob Jones, Vice President Finance at ABC Company” throughout all your activity.
However, if you uncheck the box and then edit the Headline available when changing your Name field, you’ll have the chance to advertise your career level and competencies with “Bob Jones | VP Finance, Controller, CFO | Growth, Capital, Funding, & Technology Strategies.”
The key in altering your Headline is to use terms that will trigger your hit rate for both your job target and current position (and potentially your industry). Inject a brand message related to your success, as in these examples:
Martin Forester, IT Director. SAP, Infrastructure-Building, & User Responsiveness. Manufacturing & Medical Devices
Claire Wilson | Enterprise Account Executive Accelerating Channel Sales to $40+ Million in Managed Services Markets

Problem #3: The No-Networking-Wanted Approach

If you’ve been paying attention to how LinkedIn works, you’ll make it easy for someone else to contact you. However, this doesn’t just happen unless you take steps to be findable and reachable.
First of all, join Groups (a lot of them!) that represent your career goals. The benefit of Group membership isn’t just the forums; it’s the fact that LinkedIn allows free contact from other users who share the Group with you.
Recruiters, who often use paid memberships to access choice candidates, appreciate this effort, and it can result in additional contact requests from employers via your Groups.
Next, ensure that you’ve left the “Select the types of messages you’re willing to receive“ option under Settings to fully open, ensuring you’ll receive both Introductions and InMail (LinkedIn’s internal e-mail).
Look at the Contact information. Yes, it’s buried all the way down at the bottom of your profile, but it’s important.
Did you add a phone number, e-mail address, or both? If not, get going. You can also add this information in the Summary section as needed.
There’s no need to make others wonder if you’re open to networking with them; otherwise, why use LinkedIn at all?

The bottom-line message: Making yourself a viable candidate on LinkedIn takes some time and ingenuity. Setting out to improve your LinkedIn profile (bringing it from nearly anonymous to welcoming) is a crucial first step in your search. Use my LinkedIn quick fixes on this page to get started.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock

LinkedIn Status Updates - The 7 Do's and Don'ts

I've written lots on LinkedIn over the years. Here is a great article about what to do with your LinkedIn status updates. Thanks Akira for the advice!
Ev

LinkedIn Status Updates - The 7 Do's and Don'ts

7 Good (and Bad) Ways to Use The LinkedIn Status Update Box

DO THIS:

1. Share links (using a URL shortener) to interesting articles, websites or video you have found that some individuals in your network might appreciate. Don't worry about whether all of your connections will find the information equally valuable. Also, try to use words that grab the readers and encourage them to click the link.

2. Pose a question that could lead to solving a problem you have, like: "Anyone know any good controller candidates?" One of my connections saved $20,000 in recruiting fees by posting an update like this a couple days before calling a recruiter. (I apologize to all recruiters for having to mention this situation.)

3. Conduct an informal poll of your network (which consists of many smart businesspeople) relating to a topic that is of interest to you, such as: "What interest rates are you seeing for lines of credit in the current environment?"

4. Mention a person or a situation that might be helpful to some of your connections, like: "I just met with John Jones from ABC Insurance Company and found out they are saving companies lots of $$ on workmen's compensation insurance."

5. Talk about an event you are attending or have attended to encourage involvement and/or questions about what you learned there.

6. If you are a job seeker, don't use this to say, "Hey, I'm still looking for a job." Rather, mention job fairs you are attending, people you are interviewing with, networking events you are going to, etc. Remember--having your name show up on a consistent basis on your entire network's home page is extremely important whether you are in job-seeking mode or not.

7. Use the "Like" feature when you see a helpful update from one of your connections. Doing this shares that update with your entire network. This is a great way to give the writer of the helpful update exposure to your network that he/she wouldn't normally have.

DON'T DO THIS:

1. Mentioning personal things--like what you had for breakfast and the fact your dog is sick today--is just wrong. This suggests to the business professionals in your network that you don't really respect their time.

2. Continually talking about specific products and services takes people back to the days of big newspaper ads and screaming radio messages. This is not the purpose of social media, especially LinkedIn.

3. Avoid talking about topics that might be sensitive to some of your audience. I am too embarrassed to even think about, let alone share, some of the items I see posted as status updates. You know what I mean. If your mother wouldn't want you talking about it, don't put it in your LinkedIn Status Box.

4. Think twice before posting your physical whereabouts. I have heard several real-life examples of people's homes being broken into after putting out an "I-am-out-of-town" update on Twitter. Sorry, all you Foursquare users, but I had to share that.

5. The LinkedIn/Twitter interface is causing people to have too many LinkedIn updates as well as inappropriate updates. So, if you are using that interface, be selective about the updates you share between the two platforms. LinkedIn and Twitter are designed with different purposes and strategies.

6. The netiquette on LinkedIn is no more than a couple updates per day, whereas on Twitter you are almost expected to tweet twenty times per day. (I apologize to my Twitter followers for not getting out twenty per day!) So, watch the frequency of your LinkedIn status updates.

7. Don't waste your time reading updates from people who violate all of the above. By using the "Hide" function, you can stop an individual's status updates from showing up on your home page.

Follow these simple suggestions, and you will be on your way to being a model LinkedIn citizen!

How You Can Use LinkedIn to Get Success in Your Business and Professional Career? Why You Should Use It? Watch this Free Presentation at: http://LinkedinSuccess.org

You're Living in 2013 When...

I'm on vacation today.

As a result today's column has been provided by Tim Fick.

Thanks Tim!

Ev

  

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING

IN 2013

when...

1. You accidentally

enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven't

played solitaire with real cards in years.  

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers

to reach your family of three.  

4. You e-mail the person who

works at the desk next to you.  

5. Your reason for not staying in touch

with friends and family is that they

don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your

cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you

carry in the groceries...  

7. Every commercial on  television

has a web site at the bottom of the screen

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone,

which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and

you turn around to go and get it  

10. You get up in the morning and go on line

before getting your coffee  

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12 You're reading  this and

nodding and laughing.  

13. Even worse, you know exactly

to whom you are going to forward this message.  

14. You are too busy

to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list .

16. You're Facebooking or Tweeting/Texting your spouse, friend, child and they are sitting right next to you!

~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~ ~~~~~~~  

NOW you're LAUGHING at yourself!

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused!" (Unknown Author)