PEN Meeting – Guest Speaker Bob Stein

We will be meeting again on Friday, June 5 at 10am in San Diego. Bob Stein, a well-known speaker on careers, networking and career management will be our featured speaker.  We will also be networking with fellow senior executives so come prepared with your business cards and one-pagers. Please RSVP by leaving a comment below so that we can keep track of who will make it. 

Meeting Details: 

Event: PEN Networking Mixer 
Location: DBM San Diego 
4435 Eastgate Mall, Suite 110, San Diego, CA 
When: Fri, 06/5/09, 10:00AM

PEN Meeting: Networking

We will be meeting again on Friday, May 15 at 10am in San Diego. We will be networking with fellow senior executives so come prepared with your business cards and one-pagers. Please RSVP by leaving a comment below so that we can keep track of who will make it. 

Meeting Details: 

Event: PEN Networking Mixer 
Location: DBM San Diego 
4435 Eastgate Mall, Suite 110, San Diego, CA 
When: Fri, 05/15/09, 10:00AM

Invigorating Website Posted by Roger Moyers

Read an article on TheLadders today, 12 Daily Habits to Boost Your Hire-ability, written by Scott Ginsberg and found it very interesting.  So I reached out to him via email.  He responded a short time later and it turns out he is The Name Tag Guy.  You can check out his web site at www.hellomynameisscott.com.  I highly recommend you visit this site and check out some of his articles.  Especially his May I Suggest lists.  Now Scott is a salesman and his lists contain a ton of information.  Not every item on a list is right for everybody but the sentiment of his lists are what I found the most valuable.  One in particular was 11 Things to Stop Wasting Your Time On.  The 11 things on this list weren’t exactly the things I waste time on everyday, but it certainly got me to thinking about the things that I do waste time on. 

It never hurts to do some self reflection on the things we should be doing or the things we shouldn’t be doing.  I think Scott’s lists are great reminders and also good guides to use to assist in this process.  Certainly every item on each of his lists didn’t hit home with me, and probably won’t with you, but I certainly found some genuine nuggets that I can use to improve myself.  On the Stop Wasting Your Time list, the one that really sunk home with me was Stop wasting your time trying to convince people.   Also really liked  Stop Wasting your time following up with people who never, ever call you back.   Of course persistence is a virtue and if you owe me money I’m going to track you down and get it, so it doesn’t work for that case.  But if you are trying to sell someone something, including yourself, trying to land a job in a company, I think this one rings true. 

I don’t want to steal all of Scott’s thunder, you should check out his site and his articles for yourself.  I’ve printed a few of them and I’m going to post them in plain site to remind me of things to not waste my time on.  I editted the list for my own use and inserted things I know I’ve been wasting time on. 

Hope this is helpful to you.  If you find a list you like send me an email at roger@moyersfam.com.

PEN Meeting: Networking

We will be meeting again on Friday, May 1 at 10am in San Diego. We will be networking with fellow senior executives so come prepared with your business cards and one-pagers. Please RSVP by leaving a comment below so that we can keep track of who will make it. 

Meeting Details: 

Event: PEN Networking Mixer 
Location: DBM San Diego 
4435 Eastgate Mall, Suite 110, San Diego, CA 
When: Fri, 05/1/09, 10:00AM

9 Tips to Get Executives Started on Twitter

 

If you’re like me, you’re weary of joining yet another social network. You’re on LinkedIn and maybe even Facebook, that should be enough. Wrong. Bottom line, if you’re not micro-blogging on Twitter you are missing out on one of the most powerful and easy to use, not to mention fun social media tools today. I took a quick look and saw that only 10% of my professional network is on Twitter (and most of them are not active). It’s time for everybody to step it up.

Twitter has an unprofessional name, but as you’ll see it has the potential to amplify your networking, business development, job search and relationship building at unprecedented speed.

Let’s talk about some basics:

1.      Brevity is the soul of Twitter. Your messages (known as “Tweets”) need to be less than 140 characters. As you’ll see this is more liberating than constricting.

2.      Creating a Twitter account could not be easier, but you have a very limited amount of space to create a profile, so make it count.

3.      Twitter was originally created with SMS in mind. This means that the majority of your messages can easily be written from your Blackberry or iPhone, or any phone for that matter.

4.      Keep in mind that everything you write in Twitter is tracked by the search engines. Always assume that everything you write will be read by everyone.

Networking

If you use the “What are you working on?” feature on LinkedIn, or the “What are you thinking?” feature on Facebook you have an idea about how Twitter works. Now imagine a massive social river of these bite-sized updates streaming past your screen. You’d be able to set up instant networking meetings, know who’s meeting where, which jobs just hit the market and which articles are being read by the people you respect and follow, among other timely information. 

Job Searching

I find that posting job leads on group discussion boards is clumsy and not at all effective. If you subscribe to email alerts from these job boards you’re likely inundated with job leads that simply don’t interest you. On Twitter, everyone can post these same job leads in real time without flooding everyone else’s inbox. Beyond seeing leads posted by your personal network, HR professionals are increasingly posting jobs on Twitter before they ever hit the job boards.  If you want to learn more about the nuances of job searching on Twitter click HERE.

Relationship Building

Twitter is a collective stream of consciousness. That means that everyone downloads their thoughts, both professional and personal, into a central shared space. Over time you start to see who’s a fisherman, a skier or a yogi. All of this contributes to building stronger interpersonal networks of executives that can connect and build meaningful relationships on more than one level. If you want to see what other executives are writing about check outwww.exectweets.com. 

ExecTweets aggregates executive messages on Twitter. This is a great place to see how some of the world's most respected CEOs are using Twitter to build company and personal brands.

There are many nuances native to Twitter that you’ll learn over time. Here are five you should know off the bat:

1.      Twitter asks “What are you doing?”, but don’t let that limit what you write about. You can also answer, “What are you thinking?”, “What are you reading?”, “Which jobs are you applying to?”, etc. It’s really up to you.

2.      Unlike “Contacts” on LinkedIn, the people you “Follow” on Twitter do not automatically follow you back. However, many will follow you back out of courtesy. Thus, the more people you follow the more people might follow you. Was that confusing?

3.      The Twitter search engine isn’t user friendly. I recommend using www.search.twitter.com when searching for people or specific topics.

4.      If you want to post an article you found online you’ll need to shorten the URL so that it doesn’t use up all 140 characters. To shorten URLs visit www.tinyurl.com. It’s a cinch.

5.      When you reply to somebody else’s message your tweet shows up on that person’s timeline. This is a great way to get exposure and gain new followers if your response was relevant and adds to the conversation.

Most of all, don’t forget to have fun. I highly recommend starting an account today. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get the hang of it right away. You might say Twitter is an acquired taste. Once you’re on find me atwww.twitter.com/thesocialexec. Follow me and I’ll be sure to keep the Twitter tips coming.

I suggest you continue reading about Twitter. Here are some articles to get you started:

• How to: Find a Job on Twitter
• “Short & Tweet” on Portfolio.com
• What’s a Tweet Have to do with Executive Careers?
• List of Executives on Twitter
• Executive Twittering: Blogging without the time suck

PEN Meeting: Social Media Presentation

We will be meeting again on Friday, April 17 at 10am in San Diego. This week I will be personally giving a presentation titled “Social Media for the Executive in Transition.” The presentation will also include a workshop on how to create and maintain a blog and then integrating that blog with your LinkedIn account. 

As usual, we will be networking with fellow senior executives so come prepared with your business cards and one-pagers. I hope to see you all there. Please RSVP by leaving a comment below so that we can keep track of who will make it. 

Meeting Details: 

Event: PEN Networking Mixer 
Presenter: Ryon Harms, “Social Media for the Executive in Transition” 
Location: DBM San Diego 
4435 Eastgate Mall, Suite 110, San Diego, CA 
When: Fri, 04/17/09, 10:00AM

Introducing the Pacific Executive Network (PEN)

I am pleased to announce the formation of The Pacific Executive Network (PEN). Like this blog, PEN is focused on helping senior executives better utilize technology to grow their networks and create more meaningful professional relationships. 

PEN was formed a couple of weeks ago by a group of 10 likeminded executives at the DBM offices in San Diego. We saw an opportunity to mix in-person meetings and social media, together with a limited number of members to create a healthy and productive networking environment. We believe this will allow members to make recommendations, introductions and share information with a higher level of confidence. 

PEN is a private group comprised of senior executives from diverse backgrounds. At the moment, we offer biweekly meetings, online presentations and an innovative social media community. To ensure membership you must be recommended by an existing member, otherwise we encourage senior executives to apply through PEN’s LinkedIn group for consideration. The criteria for membership are to have held positions at the Director level or above and residence in Sothern California. All industries are welcomed and encouraged to participate. 

If you’re interested in learning more and meet the criteria, I’d like to invite you apply through our LinkedIn group HERE.