ResearchGoddess

Last week, I had the extreme honor of having an article I wrote published on Mashable. You can check it out here, and when you do, please make sure to click through the links for the people who are mentioned and used as examples. There’s a great story behind them, and the article being written in the first place, that there simply wasn’t enough time, or room, to get into in that article…

It started as a simple conversation I had last summer with one of my favorite guys whom I’ve never met in person, David Mullen. I don’t even remember what David and I were talking about, but somehow we got on the topic of lists, and how we both really don’t like them. We especially dislike lists of people – you know, the ones that say ‘these are the top 15/30/50’ of whatever the category may be. And especially when it comes to social media, there are many lists that have the same people on them. This got me thinking: wouldn’t it be great to see people who are awesome in their own right, but who rarely get named on lists, lifted up? And even better, what if they were lifted up by the very people who occupy those spots on top lists? I started verbalizing my thoughts on this to David, and he got excited about it. He said it would be a great blog topic, and I agreed. So I started thinking about the best way to accomplish this, and the following is the background of my experiment in paying it “socially” forward…

The experiment: asking some of the most well-known social media professionals to recommend someone they think is a rising star in social media and someone to keep an eye on in the future. I would then contact those who were recommended and interview them on their careers, how they achieved a level of success that had gotten them noticed by such a well-known person, and where they see social media heading over the next year.

The players: among those I reached out to, I received recommendations from:

• Amber Naslund – Director of Community, Radian6
• Dan Schawbel – Personal Branding Expert and author of Me 2.0
• Peter Shankman – Founder, Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
• Steve Rubel- SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
• Chris Brogan – President, New Marketing Labs
• David Armano – SVP Digital, Edelman
• Elisa Camahort Page – Co-founder and COO, BlogHer
• Jason Falls – Principal at Social Media Explorer LLC
• Iggy Pintado – CEO/CNO, ConnectGen
• Bryan Person – Founder, Social Media Breakfast and Social Media Evangelist, LiveWorld
• Jennifer Leggio – blogger with ZDNet
• Aliza Sherman – Co-Owner and Social Media Marketing Strategist, Conversify and host of the weekly podcast “The Digital Marketer’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Building Your Business with Web Tools”
• Tony Hsieh – CEO, Zappos.com
• Jeremiah Owyang – Partner, Altimeter Group
• Mitch Joel – President, Twist Image
• Brian Solis – Principal, FutureWorks PR and Blogger at PR 2.0 & bub.blicio.us

My method of selection for reaching out to these individuals? People whom I follow, read, learn from, respect, and who have obviously achieved some high levels of success in their own careers, as evidenced in the sheer number of times they are referenced and requested for engagements. This is a small sampling of what I would consider to be the best of the best in social media, but since I couldn’t take years to complete this project, I had to keep it to a short list. There are many, many others whom I did not get to communicate with who should be considered social media success stories – but these were the people who responded when I reached out. For that alone, I owe a debt of gratitude – thank you to each of the people mentioned above for taking the time to respond to a girl you probably never heard of before.

My request to these people was to recommend one or two individuals whom they see as being ‘on the rise’ in their respective careers, and whom they see being a major player when it comes to social media in the coming months. This resulted in about 20 recommendations of people to speak with. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to connect with everyone, but those interviewed were:

• Dave Knox – Brand Manager, Digital Innovation, Procter & Gamble
• Kipp Bodnar – Social Media Marketing Manager, Howard, Merrell & Partner
• Len Kendall – Digital Account Supervisor, GolinHarris
• Jennifer Leggio – blogger with ZDNet
• Daniel Honigman – Digital Supervisor, Weber Shandwick
• Sarah Evans – President, Sevans Strategy
• Jessica Randazza – Senior Associate with Digitas
• Ken Burbary – Director of Social Media, Ernst & Young
• Nadia Jones, Stacey Ferguson, & Nyasha Smith – the 3 ladies behind www.MamaLaw.com
• Keith Burtis – Owner at Keith Burtis Consulting
• Laura Roeder – Principal of Roeder Studios
• Amanda Mooney – Sr. Social Media Strategist, Edelman
• Kneale Mann – Marketing and Social Media Strategist, YouIntegrate
• Venessa Miemis – blogger (emergent by design), currently pursuing a Masters in Media Studies at the New School
• Kaitlyn Wilkins – VP of Digital Strategy, Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Group

Those recommended but unable to connect before the article was published included:

• DJ Waldow – Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
• Ruth Sylte – Principal Consultant, Manitou Heights Group Inc.
• Jade Craven – Founder, Social Media Solutions
• Julia Roy – Senior Manager of New Media, Coach
• Bill Cody – Las Vegas real estate
• Jun Loayza – President, SocialMediaMarketing.com and Chief Marketing Officer, Viralogy

As I began reaching out to these people, I started thinking how this could turn into an annual ‘pay it forward’ project. My plan, as I shared with them, was to contact each of them at the end of the year to get their recommendations for the next group, and so on and so forth. Every person involved in this project indicated that they loved the pay-it-forward concept – which told me I was talking to the right group of people: people who were already giving back out of the abundance of success in their own lives, and who saw a great opportunity to continue to do so.

I learned so much in the few months I spent communicating with and getting to know these people. I of course learned some similarities they each possessed, as discussed in the Mashable article. But I also learned that all of them have a strong desire to see other people achieve success, and an equally strong desire to help make that possible. I am honored to have had the chance to get to know a group of people with such big hearts.

And so, to stay true to my original plan when I initially reached out, I am going to be posting short spotlight posts here on each of the recommended people over the coming weeks/months. The plan will be to do one per week – giving you a chance to get to know each of them and put them on your radar as a rising star.

As a final note – I want to say a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to either recommend someone for this project, or who took time out of their busy schedules to have a conversation with me and let me get to know you. It has been an absolute pleasure, and I look forward to doing this again next year!

Tags: brand, career, pay it forward, PR

I believe there’s a lot of untapped gold on Twitter when it comes to searching for job candidates. The thing you need to keep in mind is that there is more than one type of job seeker on Twitter. Here are the two types of active job seekers I’ve noticed on Twitter:

1. The Deliberate Twitter Job Seeker
2. The Situational Twitter Job Seeker

The deliberate twitter job seeker is the person who has written in their bio line that they are looking, whereas the situational twitter job seeker is one who might tweet that they dislike their job or want a new job after a frustrating day at work. The key is to run searches for both types of people. If you only search Twitter updates for job seekers, you’re going to miss out on the ones who have their job seeker status in their bio.

The deliberate job seekers most likely have other social network profiles elsewhere noting their status as a job seeker, and Twitter is simply a part of their ‘campaign’. As such, it would be best to use a tool such as TweepSearch or Tweepz to find these people. These two search engines search only Twitter profiles, not the tweets themselves. Here is a sample search string to use:

“looking for a job” OR “looking for work” OR “seeking employment” OR “need a job” OR “need work” OR unemployed OR “new opportunity”

Situational job seekers are going to be a bit more challenging to find, because they probably don’t even consider themselves to really be ‘active’ job seekers. Rather, these are the individuals that maybe had a bad day at work and are venting. For example:

When approaching these people, it’s important to catch them close to the time in which they expressed their disdain to their job. That is, if you wait until 2 days after they’ve expressed hatred for their current job, you’ve probably missed your window of opportunity. For this search, I recommend conducting a basic search through Twitter’s advanced search function and subscribing to an RSS of the results. This way, you’ll get fresh results for people who are having frustrating days at work. Here is a search string that has worked pretty well for me:

“new job” OR “need a job” OR (“looking for” job) OR ((want OR need) “new job”) OR (hate “my job”) OR “job sucks”

Another good resource to follow is the Twitter account @hatemyjobfeed. This particular Twitter account automatically retweets message that contain “hate my job”. While often just amusing, there are occasionally tweets that come through this feed that warrant a response from a recruiter with a good opportunity.

Tags: recruiting, Research, Twitter

“Research Goddess” is a silly nickname that was assigned to me nearly 4 years ago. The story behind how it came to pass is pretty interesting, so let me share with it with you and put to rest any notion that its meaning is anything more than completely fun and innocent.

When I left my first internet research job, which I held for 4 years, I also left a sizable internet research community via a listserv (numbering near 500 participants). As it was a proprietary listserv, I was no longer allowed access to it. I started my blog in order to stay connected to several of these researchers as well as to meet new people outside of that community. My first blog, by the way, was called “SPI Research” (now simply a placeholder), NOT Research Goddess. Research Goddess came about after I had conversations with Joel Cheesman and Jim Stroud. Joel informed me that I needed to create a memorable identity (as he did with Cheezhead), and Jim told me it would be in my best interest not to tie my blog directly to the company for which I worked at the time. He told me it would be hard to continue with the blog title “SPI Research” if I ever left SearchPath International, which I eventually did a year later.

Jim and I played around with some new possible blog titles on the phone one day, most of which I cannot recall now. In jest, I threw out “Research Goddess” and the line went silent. I thought at first I’d lost the connection, or that it was a horrible idea, but then I heard an enthusiastic “That’s awesome!!” from Jim. I chuckled, stating that it was just a joke, but Jim insisted that it was a great blog title and a memorable one at that. To this day, whenever Jim calls me or I call him, he always greets me with “Hello, Goddess!” It makes me giggle that he still does this, as it’s all in good fun.

As months turned into years, the nickname stuck. In fact, when I go to conferences now, I usually introduce myself and then throw in “I write Research Goddess”, and only then do I get the “Ohhhh, I know who you are!” responses. I am almost better known by my silly pseudonym than I am by my real name. What this tells me is 1) it’s a memorable nickname, but 2) I need to do a better job of tying who I really am in with the nickname. Working on that…

As a test to those of you reading this, here are a couple of other popular ‘nicknames’ of people you might recognize:

• The Sourceress
• The Searchologist
• Cincy Recruiter
• HR Bartender
• The Recruiter Guy
• The Red Recruiter
• Recruiting Animal
• MN Headhunter

While you may not know their real names off the top of your head, you recognize the names and know that each has a niche or a gimmick that is recognized and understood. That’s one of the important parts of creating a memorable identity for yourself. And one of the reasons “Research Goddess” has stuck to me.

Does it mean I believe I am a goddess? Heck no. I’m just another girl in this game, trying to learn and grow just like the rest of you, while sharing my thoughts with this little community. And quite honestly, for those of you who know me, I mean REALLY know me, you know that pretentious, selfish, or conceited are not words that describe me. Opinionated, yes. You’ll never have to wonder where I stand on issues. But having an opinion does not equate to being full of oneself.

If you think that the nickname “Research Goddess” means that I think I am an expert or a guru of sorts, please talk to any of my peers and learn otherwise. I will say that I feel blessed to have had opportunities cross my path that have enabled me to learn and develop my skills. As such, I do believe I have a decent grasp on good research techniques as well as some application of social media technologies when it comes to sourcing. Also, I believe my peers will tell you that I certainly have earned any praise that I have received. I believe I’ve worked hard and contributed some value to this industry, and I hope I’ve done a good job of paying it forward as well. BUT… I know I still have SO much to learn, and you will never hear me say anything to infer that I feel I’ve ‘arrived’. EVER.

If after having talked to my peers you still believe there is a conceited, pretentious, or conniving underlying purpose for my blog and my nickname, I strongly urge you to leave a comment here. Or call me directly – (360) 389-3227 – and let’s talk. Give me your thoughts as to why you believe this of me, and make some constructive suggestions for alternatives. I’m open to all ideas if you think I should take another direction. All I ask is that you don’t judge me or my intentions until you get to know me.

In the end, you’re certainly entitled to think whatever you want to about me. But I believe my work, my track record, and my peers’ experiences with me speak louder than anything else. I hope this sheds some light on the whole ‘research goddess’ thing. It’s just a stupid nickname, but it helps people recognize and remember me. And in my book, that’s a good thing.

If you’ve got some cleaning up to do when it comes to the people whom you follow on Twitter, I highly recommend Tweepi. It’s not just a clean-up tool, it’s actually a complete Twitter account management tool. With Tweepi, you can auto-follow back new followers, auto-unfollow people who unfollow you, auto-reciprocate for those who are following you already but you’re not following them, and (my favorite) to a quick clean-sweep and bulk unfollow many accounts at once.

Example: I want to clean up the current people whom I follow. Once I us oAuth to access my account, I can pre-set targets:…or I can customize the columns which I’d like to see in the results:

Once I choose what columns I’d like to see, I can then start going through the list of people I follow and bulk follow/unfollow them:

The only thing I don’t like about the sorting feature is that it only sorts what is on the current page. Meaning, you have to click through and re-sort each page; it doesn’t sort all the results, just one page at a time.

Give it a shot – I love that this is a one-stop multiple function account management site. Enjoy!

Wayne Gretzky, arguably one of the greatest hockey players of all time, has a few of my favorite quotes. First one is probably his most famous, and that is “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Slightly less well-known is this:

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

I will add to this and say, “I skate to where the puck [in my game] is going to be, not where it has been.”

When you are sourcing, do you think about where YOUR potential candidates are going to be, or do you just go to the same tired places because that’s where everyone else has been?

When looking for candidates, go where the candidates are going to congregate in your industry. And for each of us, that is going to be a different place. For example: a marketing sourcer is probably going to find a plethora of candidates through various popular social networks. An accounting sourcer – not so much.

The whole idea behind this quote is forward thinking and future planning. You have to be one step ahead of your target or you’re going to miss it, or be late to the game and get stuck with all the leftovers.

Are you a talent attraction professional? Start thinking 6-12 months ahead of your target audience. How is the economy going to affect them? How is the current labor market going to affect them? The latest technologies? Then locate resources discussing these types of topics and share them. You’ll earn brownie points for thinking of them and their future. And while you’re at it, digest those resources yourself. Chances are a few new candidate resources will surface when you start thinking ahead…

We’re each playing similar, yet decidedly unique, games here. Stop worrying about the puck in other people’s games. Make sure you’re following the puck in your game and look ahead to where it’s going to be.