ResearchGoddess

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What Peter had to say about Jessica: “Jessica is smart, smart, smart. She’s very good at the Social Media world, getting great ideas and running with them.”

Jessica has traversed the United States and has settled recently in New York City. She attended the University of Alabama to study Public Relations and Advertising and graduated from the University of Alabama – Birmingham. She began her career in public relations with Publicis Consultants | PR in Seattle, focusing on food/nutrition and health/wellness accounts. Earlier this year, she moved to the East Coast to become a Senior Associate with Digitas, where she focuses on consumer accounts and agency strategy. She blogs at JessicaRandazza.com as well. Continue reading “Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: Jessica Randazza” »

As I step into my new role with ERE as Editor of The Fordyce Letter and continuing my duties as Editor of The Source Newsletter, I wanted to flesh out a couple of observations I have made in recent months regarding the sourcing world. I have heard several people, including a number of sourcers, express concern for the future of our function. These concerns have ranged from automation to irrelevance due to the vast number of social technologies at our fingertips. While I do agree that our roles are certainly changing, I would like to offer up a couple of predictions I’ve been rolling around in my mind regarding these concerns. Continue reading “Two Predictions For The Future of Sourcing” »

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What David had to say about Daniel: “Daniel previously worked at the Chicago Tribune activating “Colonel Tribune” as a character based of the Tribune’s history which gained a large following on Twitter. Since then, Daniel has [been]… doing some interesting work with storystreaming (telling stories through lifestreaming tools such as Posterous).”

Daniel attended SUNY Buffalo where he earned his undergraduate degree in Anthropology. He then attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and earned his Masters degree in Journalism. Daniel started his career in newspaper and was a Social Media Strategy Coordinator at the Chicago Tribune, and then the social media lead with Tribune Interactive. He eventually wound up working at Weber Shandwick as a Digital Communications Supervisor, and recently joined Sears Home Electronics as a Social Media Manager. He also blogs at Old Media New Tricks and the3six5 Project, with he runs in collaboration with Len Kendall.

What interested Daniel in social media: As a reporter, he saw how digital was becoming an important part of the mix. Daniel looks to brands like Zappos, which has created tons of supporters that go out and promote for the company. If the conversation is good on a site, people will go back several times per day to continue to engage in the discussions. He says that authentic conversation starts advocacy.

Some of Daniel’s thoughts on the importance of branding through social media: “In social media, there are a lot of people who understand the space but don’t have ‘tread on the tire’ when it comes to working with brand. It’s important to know how to brand yourself! Using social media with brands, facing real challenges; it’s exciting but difficult. You have to convince your clients as well as your company stakeholders of its importance. You can have the most impact by building up client relationships and coming up with solutions that make sense.”

Some of Daniel’s thoughts on journalism and social media: Daniel believes that it is important to look for different story-telling formats, but he also believes that the long-form article won’t disappear entirely – it has to exist. For example, he says to take a look at The New Yorker and The Atlantic – not all journalism can happen in 140 characters. Journalism is journalism – whether in 5,000 characters or in 140 characters.

Where Daniel sees social media going in the future: Over the next 12 months, Daniel thinks that lifestreaming will play a major role in the progression of social media. With this, he believes that Tumblr & Posterous will help people manage their social media presence. Using tools like these as ‘hub-and-spoke’ modeling for managing your social media presence can help to center your digital activities and give others a more aggregated view of your on- and offline activities.

Connect with Daniel on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog

photo credit: Chris Brogan

Over the past eight years, I’ve gone from working with search and placement firms to working with corporate recruitment organizations, conducting research for high tech industries, financial services, construction, PR & marketing, and telecommunications among others. I’ve blogged, tweeted, Facebooked, LinkedIn, and shot video in hopes of sharing knowledge with all of the wonderfully interesting people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting throughout my career. My Research Goddess blog grew wings and took off, and helped me establish a well-known and well-respected online presence. Each chapter of my professional career has ended with a paragraph leading seamlessly into the next chapter. And the end of this chapter is certainly no exception…

Next week, I will be joining ERE Media, Inc. as the Editor for The Fordyce Letter as well as The Source Newsletter. I will also be helping out with organizing the Fordyce Forum and SourceCon conferences. I’ve had a long-standing relationship with the founders of SourceCon, serving as the editor for the newsletter since 2007 after the first conference was put on. When ERE Media purchased SourceCon last year, I continued in this role on a voluntary basis, and when the opportunity came recently to join ERE as an employee and also take on The Fordyce Letter, I couldn’t say no! I’m super excited about this opportunity – not only will I get to continue working with SourceCon, but I will also get to return to my roots by working closely once again with recruitment search firms and helping bring relevant news and information to both worlds.

As the daughter of an English teacher and a card-carrying member of the Grammar Police, being an editor is a natural fit for me. This new chapter is an ideal next step for my career – I have the opportunity to be a change agent in sourcing and a part of the grand tradition of The Fordyce Letter. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, The Fordyce Letter has been the gold standard for search and placement firms for the last four decades. It was purchased by Paul Hawkinson in 1980, and a few years ago ERE acquired it from Hawkinson. The newsletter has always delivered high quality articles from some of the most successful search professionals in the industry, and I intend to see this continue.

I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed my time with AT&T – I have learned and grown so much professionally over the last year and I am grateful for all of the wonderful relationships I have been privileged to build while there. My experience with AT&T I really believe will help me be successful in my new role. I will miss my AT&T colleagues, but as I’ve said before, changing companies doesn’t mean friendships end! I plan to keep in touch with everyone there and hope to see many of you around the conference circuit.

My first duty with ERE will be attending the Fordyce Forum next week in Las Vegas. I am looking forward to reconnecting with those of you who will be there.

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What David had to say about Len: “I’ve worked with Len at Critical Mass but he’s already been developing a name for himself by being a prolific writer, commentator and participant in social media and communications. Len is very passionate about the space and no doubt will continue rising due to his persistence and the level of participation he puts out there.”

Len attended Purdue University where he studied Marketing and Sales. He says that studying sales was helpful in terms of learning how to network. He started his career with Starcom, a media communications agency, where he realized that digital was his passion. After spending two years with Starcom, he joined CriticalMass, a digital marketing agency. There he was involved in digital media buying/planning and started getting more involve with social media. He found that media buying/planning was valuable, but may not be leading the charge with social technologies and observed that PR was well positioned to lead the charge when it came to social media. Following his time with CriticalMass, Len freelanced for a bit, and through this work he was offered lots of professional guidance. Eventually, GolinHarris offered him a position and he currently works as an Account Supervisor with the Dialog Group there. His focus is on providing clients with expertise on digital and social media PR campaigns. In addition to his job, Len also spends time being creative via Posterous and the3six5 Project, which he runs in collaboration with Daniel Honigman

Some people who have inspired Len: David Armano was someone who inspired Len – in fact, he said that David is the reason he went to work at CriticalMass. He respected David’s work even though they didn’t work closely. They had a sort of “digital mentorship” relationship. Len also says he learns a lot from Tac Anderson, Digital Consulting Director at Waggener Edstrom, and Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer at Mullen. Of Boches, he says that there are a lot of the creative people in the business aren’t that much into social media, but he is.

What Len loves about social media: Len says that he likes to live a life of “micro empires”. He says that he gets bored doing just one thing so he enjoys having side projects that inspire him. Being a part of social media, he says there are many opportunities to be a “renaissance man”, which is part of what inspired him to start the3six5 Project with Daniel Honigman. The idea of this project was to have 365 people write a blog post every day of 2010. Each day, a different person posts an entry, so they’ll have a diary of the year written by each of these people. The project was born from the idea of lifestreaming – they want to stream the collective life of people from many different places, and social media has helped facilitate this.

Where Len sees social media going in the future: Over the next 12 months Len believes that social media will become a business priority for the Fortune 500. If a company has a customer service or PR division, then it will most assuredly have specific employees dedicated to social media. Additionally, Len believes that jobs involving social media will continue to be on the rise. If you look at job boards you will see that there are a lot of opportunities to work with big brands in the realm of social media right now. Agencies are growing social media business areas because that is where brands are in need of service.

Connect with Len on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog