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:

Jun is the Chief Marketing Officer of Viralogy, a company that specializes in eCommerce Intelligence.  They personalize the shopping experience for shoppers on ecommerce stores to increase average order value and conversion rates.  Jun attended UCLA and earned a BA in Economics and Philosophy in 2007. It was during college that he met Co-founders Yu-kai Chou, Stephen Johnson, and Joseph Yi to bring Viralogy to where it is today.  Jun has written for Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog as well as Mashable, and has presented at conferences such as Web 2.0, Social Media Strategies, and YPulse.  Jun also ran Social Media Marketing and blogs at Young Successful Entrepreneur. Continue reading “Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: Jun Loayza” »

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 Amber had to say about DJ: “DJ has an email background, but he’s fully grasping the potential and power of social media, and I already know he’s making a difference to his community.”

DJ graduated with a BBA from University of Michigan in 1998. Upon graduation, he worked as a business analyst for two years in Chicago and Kansas City. He then decided to pursue a  Master of Education degree because he wanted to be a teacher. Upon earning that degree, he taught junior high American history for two years. Ready to get back into business world, he went back to North Carolina to work in business for another four years. A year ago, DJ earned  his MBA from UNC Chapel Hill. Last summer, he became the Director of Community for Blue Sky Factory, a company that provides email marketing products and services. His role was actually written based on Amber’s job description – he manages the social media presence for the company, including writing and managing the company blog, The Thinking Inbox. DJ says that if he’s doing his job right, you’ll associate his name and his face with Blue Sky Factory and email marketing. Additionally, he writes a monthly article for MarketingProfs, a monthly column for the Email Insider, and blogs for himself at Social Butterfly Guy. Continue reading “Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: DJ Waldow” »

A friend recently shared with me about his work review. I know this friend to be an amazingly talented individual, so I was shocked when he shared that he’d had a less than stellar review from his boss and essentially was being put on probation. We started talking about work reviews and feedback and came to the conclusion that there were mixed messages being sent to him. With mixed messaging (or NO messaging) coming from several different sources, how is an employee supposed to succeed?

Failure #1: Waiting until review time to provide critical feedback. Unless your ultimate design is to get rid of an employee (and if that’s the case, perhaps you should re-evaluate your hiring practices) feedback on areas that need improvement should be given before reviews come around to allow employees the opportunity to make changes. Think of a large ship – the further you let it go off course without correcting its coordinates, the longer it’s going to take that ship to get going in the right direction. Blindsiding employees with critical improvement areas on which their employment hangs only at review time sends the message that you’re really not interested in helping their career development or assisting them in being successful at their work, which would benefit the company as a whole. If you’re a parent, would you wait to correct your child’s wrong behavior until the bi-annual ‘family meeting’, or would you correct it as you see it so they could learn to change? Continue reading “Failing At Managing” »

My friend Mike shared a link to an article by Lindsay Fosner called We Don’t Go To Church last week. The post discusses some reasons why people, young people in particular, don’t attend church anymore. I found it quite interesting that ‘community’ was referenced several times in this post – and there are plenty of things about all types of communities that can be learned from the dwindling attendance in church these days.

“Young adults today are looking for depth…They are opposed to said “community” that doesn’t truly hold people accountable or go deeper than knowing your name.”

How many times do we have this debate of quality vs. quantity? Sure, to have a diverse and interesting community, you must have quantity. But to have deep, meaningful relationships within that community, you must focus on quality. There is a delicate balance of the two to find the most value within a community, and unfortunately a lot of young people aren’t willing to put the sweat equity into building a valuable community. Continue reading “Lessons On Sustaining A Successful Community Learned Through the Church” »

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 Mitch had to say about Kneale: “Kneale is smart, he really does connect, and he is from radio and knows that the world is changing.”

Kneale is a fantastically charismatic guy who lives in the Ottawa area. He works for himself helping clients with strategic and marketing planning, social media consultation and implementation, and personal and company branding as well as start-up launches. He has a unique background in that he comes from a very traditional media world, having worked in radio, print, and TV. He has been involved in media and marketing in some capacity for more than two decades and has a wealth of knowledge that he is now applying in the social media world. Kneale also blogs at One Mann’s Opinion. Continue reading “Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: Kneale Mann” »