Six Degrees of Steve

Want to know the Org charts for your favorite companies? Now you can!

As taken by techcrunch...

TheOfficialBoard Launches With Wiki Org Charts For 20,000 Companies

We’re all getting used to the idea that our personal information information is now public to the extent that we share it on social networks and elsewhere on the Web. Corporate data about people’s roles and functions within different organizations is similarly becoming increasingly public. All you need to do is search on LinkedIn to get a person’s entire work history or Jigsaw to find their direct contact information. Now you can add TheOfficialBoard, a contact database which goes one step further. It shows the organization charts for 20,000 of the largest companies, so you can not only look up an executive like Mark Zuckerberg but also see who reports to him or her.

Org charts are not always the most reliable indicator of power within a company, but they do serve as a handy way to visualize the power relationships within specific corporate networks. At launch, TheOfficialBoard is hit or miss in terms of its comprehensiveness and accuracy. (See Google. Where is Marissa Mayer? Does Joshua Schachter really report directly to Eric Schmidt? Update: he doesn’t). But it will get better over time. Like Jigsaw, it relies on its members to fill out the data about each company. And most of the detailed information is obscured unless you either add three contacts, or you can pay $100 a year for premium access. Both contact data or cash can be traded in for virtual currency, which then can be used to access the data. This data exchange model is also similar to Jigsaw’s, over which Michael once had a hissy fit.

But TheOfficialBoard takes pains to ensure the accuracy of its data beyond simply relying on the contributions of its members. Every e-mail is kept private. Members can only contact the executive through TheOfficialBoard, much in the same way LinkedIn works. Furthermore, it checks every executive e-mail address that is entered into the system and encourages the named executives at each company to verify the information. (The “contact an executive” feature has not yet been activated, the company is waiting until it has amassed tens of thousands of verified emails). Currently, there are 200,000 executives in the system across 80 counties. The service also offers alerts by company or individual executive. The alerts are sent out whenever there is a change in job positions.

TheOfficialBoard is based in France. It was founded by Thomas Lot, the former general manager of Apple France and VP Europe of Amazon. The site was launched with $150,000 in seed capital.

Update: It turns out Forbes.com also has an Org Chart Wiki, which I am told was something Roger McNamee pushed for after Elevation Partners took a stake in Forbes Media. To be honest, it looks like a half-hearted effort and is hard on the eyes. The challenge for all of these services is getting people with the correct information to give it up. For too many people, the incentive simply isn’t there.

Transitioning blog

Hey everyone!  Just want to give a heads up that I'll be transitioning my blog to another platform in the next couple of weeks.  I'm sorry I haven't been as active as of late, but work has been incredibly busy and I can't get to my blog as often as I like.

I'll let you know the redirect, but wanted to give a heads up to everyone with enough noticed!

Take the test to see how you fare in social media?

Great article in mashable today about how to be effective using social media to your advantage.  Take a look and see how you would fare....

 

Do You Pass the Social Media Recruitment Test?

Posted: 08 Apr 2009 09:38 AM PDT

Boris Epstein is the CEO and Founder of BINC, a Professional Search Firm that specializes in the Software Marketplace. Boris shares his thoughts about the recruitment industry, job hunting and career advice at AskBinc.com.

With the emergence of social media sites like LinkedInLinkedIn reviews, FacebookFacebook reviews, and TwitterTwitter reviews, and their user bases growing by the millions, one would think that a headhunter’s job just got much easier. I mean let’s face it; nowadays we can find anybody whether it’s on one of these social networking sites, on a blog, discussion board, alumni list or via true and tried headhunting techniques.

But it’s not that simple. In the golden days of recruiting we would hunt for days to find a candidate with a degree from a top university who worked for a top notch company who of course was considered priceless and absolutely worth contacting. Today however, we run a simple search on LinkedIn and find hundreds that match that exact profile. Or we run a quick search on Twitter for anybody discussing a specific keyword and we now have hundreds more to contact. But with only a set number of hours in a day, we just don’t have the bandwidth to contact everybody.

The problem of today completely flipped from the one of yesterday where we went from candidate scarcity and limited information to an overabundance of candidates and even more information available on each one.

So in today’s world of information overload where talent is literally available by the truckloads, I thought it would be relevant to write a post about how we evaluate a candidate’s social media footprint to determine (when all else is equal) which candidates we would contact and which ones get left by the wayside. I posed the following question to make it simple:

If all else were equal, like education, work history and general skill set, and I had to evaluate the social media footprints of two candidates to determine which one of them I would contact, which one would I contact and why? In my experience, I would contact the one who:

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On LinkedIn

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1. Has genuine recommendations from peers, managers and colleagues
2. Has the more complete profile
3. Is a member of more groups pertaining to their respective field
4. Has a picture
5. Lists interests, hobbies and other information related to their life outside of work
6. Participates and highlights their involvement in non-paid projects related to their field (open-source, community, volunteer, conference)
7. Updates their status more often
8. Asks and answers more questions
9. Links to their employer, blog and other projects of interest
10. Has the larger network

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On their blog

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1. Has interesting things to say about their respective profession and industry
2. Provides glimpses into their life outside of work – family, friends, hobbies, etc.
3. Does not bad-mouth their current or previous employer
4. Provides links to their other social networking profiles
5. Includes a link to their current resume
6. Updates with new posts regularly
7. Keeps it non-controversial – minimal discussion of sex, politics, religion and other such controversial topics.
8. Is more genuine and honest
9. Has a blogroll with link to other interesting blogs

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On Facebook

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1. Respects the overlap between their personal and professional lives
2. Updates often
3. Posts pictures of friends and family but keeps them pg-13
4. Keeps it non-controversial – doesn’t take extreme positions on sex, drugs, religion, politics or other topics that could cause an employer to be wary of hiring
5. Is a member of groups relevant to their profession

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On Twitter

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1. Tweets often (between 2-10 times per day is considered reasonable)
2. Has a healthy followers/following ratio
3. Has the biggest network
4. Keeps a healthy balance between personal and professional tweets
5. Doesn’t just update, but also responds to others and generally seems to get Twitter

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When Googled

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1. Does not lead to something controversial like arrests
2. Leads to profession-related discussions and commentary on other social media sites
3. Leads me to their online blog, webpage or social media profiles
4. Doesn’t come up blank

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Why it matters

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Now you might be asking yourself, if somebody has the skills that an employer requires, why are all of the above criteria important? The short answer is that nowadays employers rarely hire just skills and are looking for much more of a complete package - skills plus a well-rounded individual that fits well with their team and company. And a person’s social media footprint gives employers (and others) the best insight into your passions, interests, communication styles, work habits, work/life balance and all sorts of other valuable information.

Simply put, it helps an employer get to know you and get comfortable with you before a single word has even been exchanged. So think about it, if you had the choice to consider a cold bland resume or an actual person with common interests, passions and work/life style, wouldn’t the choice be obvious?

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New to social media?

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But what happens if you’re new to the world of Social Media and aren’t quite at the same pace as some of the veterans out there. Not to worry, just follow a few easy steps and you’ll be right into the thick of the game in absolutely no time.

1. Start ASAP!
2. Create fully completed LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles.
3. Shed your preconceived notions of keeping your work and home life separate. Companies want people, not resumes. Start portraying yourself as the well-rounded individual that you are.
4. Use social media to its fullest – update often, connect with others and stay active.
5. Don’t stop ever (even if you’re happily employed and aren’t looking for new work). Establishing and maintaining a social media footprint is not an act, it’s a process. Just like your career evolves, so should your Social Media Footprint.

Boris Epstein is the CEO and Founder of BINC, a Professional Search Firm that specializes in the Software Marketplace. As a professional recruiter Boris shares his thoughts about the recruitment industry, job hunting and career advice at AskBinc.com.

Leveraging Socia Media for Career Success

Great link from Mashable!

Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog.

Social media tools are becoming mandatory for career success. They are free advertising and give you the ability to connect directly with hiring managers, entrepreneurs and recruiters, instead of applying for jobs through job boards, which are black holes.  Your digital assets — blog, podcast, and social networking profiles — are your online identity and how people discover and connect with you.  You have the ability to leverage one or all of these social media tools in order to present a positive image and be recruited for a position that aligns with your passion. 

In this post, you’ll learn how to conduct a situational analysis, figure out exactly what your personal brand is, select the best social media tools to connect with your audience, build your online empire and finally, market your brand for career success.  In light of the launch of my new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, we’re also giving away free copies (details at the bottom of this post).

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1.  Conduct a situational analysis

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You can’t leverage social media for career success unless you know where you stand today.  This includes taking a good look at your life, what your current responsibilities are, the amount of resources you currently have and your career position.  For instance, if you have two children and a full-time job (two children is probably another full-time job), you won’t be able to spend ten hours a day building a community using social media tools.  If you’re twenty years old and your parents are wealthy, then you will have more time to invest in your online brand and you may have extra cash to help market yourself. Also, you may have a strong or a weak professional network, which can either support your brand or hinder it moving forward.

When it comes to your career, you need to decide if you’re looking to go to graduate school, start a company, or get a full-time job at a company and climb that corporate ladder.  These decisions will impact how you use tools to communicate what you do, who you serve, and how you want to be positioned relative to everyone else, along with your goals and mission.

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2.  Unearth your personal brand

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Since social media tools require multimedia and written components for profiles, you’ll need to figure out your personal brand before you start building your profiles.  Start by assessing what your strengths are, what you’re passionate about and then ask your network for feedback.  Figure out how people describe you already and how you want people to perceive you in the future.  During this time, you’ll want to stay true to yourself, remain authentic and be completely transparent because that is how people are going to relate to you.

Decide on your personal brand statement, a single picture/avatar to best represent you and fill out the typical profile fields that you will find on the majority of social networks (i.e. a summary, work experience, personal interests, etc).  Your personal brand statement isn’t a job title, like financial analyst or marketing manager.  Instead it tells the world two things:  what you do and who you serve.  After you’ve written all of this information down, you’re prepared to select the best social media tools for your branding strategy.

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3.  Select the right tools

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Social media tools should be selected along the lines of three sets of criteria.  First, the volume of the social network is an important qualification because you want to market yourself where a lot of people are already searching for people that have your expertise.  Plus, social networks like FacebookFacebook reviews, LinkedInLinkedIn reviews, TwitterTwitter reviews, FriendFeedFriendFeed reviews, YouTubeYouTube reviews, FlickrFlickr reviews, DeliciousDelicious reviews and DiggDigg reviews have millions of users that can share your resume, profile, blog entries and more.  This allows your brand to go viral and that exposure can help you land a job without applying.  Second, the credibility of social networks helps you consider only the tools that have successful individuals you’d want to network with to help your career. For instance, LinkedIn is known to have many executives on it, including Bill Gates. 

Finally, the relevancy of the social network, as it ties in to your career and industry, can void the other two requirements.  There are social networks for doctors (Medical Mingle), real estate agents (Active Rain), and many more.  You’ll want to join these because you’ll meet people just like you.  Ning contains social networks for almost every vertical as well.

Aside from social networks, I highly encourage you to have your own personal digital asset.  This could be either a blog or a traditional website registered under your name or the topic you want to own (with keywords). For blogging, use either Wordpress.com/.org, Bloggerblogger reviews, TypepadTypePad reviews or TumblrTumblr reviews.  For traditional websites, use a host such as Bluehost, Godaddy, or a free host like Bravenet.

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4.  Build your online empire

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Now that you have all the tools in place and have filled out all your social networking profiles, it’s time to start building your online empire. This means you have to start generating a lot of content, either written, audio, video or all three. It also requires you to become a resource and a valuable contributor to your community. 

You’ll have to constantly share interesting articles that you create or that you find on your topic and distribute them throughout all of your networks (the ones that you chose in step 4).  The process for building your empire includes creating interesting and relevant content and publishing it, over and over again.  To do this, you need to be committed, confident and passionate about what you do or you’ll end up giving up.

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5.  Market your brand

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Marketing your brand for career success is the hardest part of the process.  Most bloggers don’t even bother marketing their blogs.  They believe that creating content markets itself, which is completely false and the reason why they have yet to reach a high level of success.  Just having social networking profiles isn’t enough.  You need to invest ten times as many hours in your marketing campaign as you do actually creating content.

There are many routes you can take to market your brand, such as being a member of a special interest group, becoming a leader in that group and speaking to organizations. Then there’s commenting on blogs in your industry, guest posting on other sites and interviewing bloggers. You can pitch bloggers and traditional journalists so that you can be a part of their stories and you can join forums, Facebook fan pages and groups to meet other people that may want your services.  Regardless of the way you get your name out there, ensure it’s consistent with your brand.

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6.  Monitor your reputation

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Whether you choose to use free or fee-based reputation monitoring tools, you need to keep your pulse on what people are saying about you all the time.  The mandatory tools you need to use are search.twitter.com and google.com/alerts because you’ll be able to catch microposts (Twitter) and macroposts (blogs/news articles) citing your name. 

You want to have a fast reaction time so that you can locate Tweets or blog posts that you can leverage as endorsements or find negative messages that you can prevent from spreading.  Think about monitoring your reputation as an opportunity to learn more about how you’re projecting your brand to the world and take some of it as feedback to help you in your future career development.