Tag Archives: posterous

Social media in three hours: Government communications

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I was in Washington, DC, earlier this week to present a workshop at ALI’s “Social Media for Government” conference. A three-hour workshop. While I initially worried about how I was going to fill that much time, it actually went by pretty quickly. I think the 25 students survived, and maybe even learned something.

Since so many conferences feature speakers just using slides and talking at the audience, I wanted to be sure that I got the class involved. It’s easy to talk about social media, but another thing entirely to do it. The first part of the workshop involved splitting the class into groups. I asked each group to find things they had in common and write a collective “Twitter bio” in 160 characters or less that described the group, and also give three hashtags about their group.

The teams stayed together throughout the workshop. I shared some information about how the media landscape is changing and how traditional media and social media are still important. One of the most important strategies for communicating to the media and directly to audiences? Content creation. I gave examples of several organizations that are doing a great job of creating lively, interesting, multimedia content that appeals to mainstream media and to the public – the kind of content that gets written about, linked to, and shared.

Each team was assigned a “content creation channel” – video, podcasting, blogging or microblogging/aggregation. The teams had 25 minutes to create a piece of content about the workshop. I didn’t give too much guidance, I just told them to be creative and stick to their channel. Each group shared their content to a Posterous site I created for the class: http://smgov2010.posterous.com

The results are fun and I think (hope) the class enjoyed getting to do something participatory and creative, versus listening to me ramble on for three hours! My slides from the session are embedded below (and also on the Posterous site):

Social Media for Government

View more presentations from Amy Mengel.

Social Media continues to be a challenge for many in government, who constantly struggle with complex processes and layers of approvals in order to get anything accomplished (social or not). Earning buy-in is tough, and articulating the value of social media engagement with higher-ups and then gaining enough flexibility to execute social strategies and campaigns outside of traditional, strict oversight rules that exist in most government organizations is still an uphill battle. One organization I spoke with must have every single tweet approved. Seriously.

Still, it was good to see a group of government communicators excited and interested in social media and attempting to figure out how to make it work in their organization. Hopefully I was able to help some of them move a little closer to integrating social media into their communications plans.

Why I was wrong about lifestreaming

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I sat staring down the white screen of WordPress death tonight knowing that I was due a blog post but unable to come up with anything (I’m sure no blogger has EVER had that problem before, EVER).

So, in my writer’s-block-induced haze, I sent out the following tweet:

Crowdsourced tweetThe lucky winner? Mark Krynsky (@krynsky) responded first:

Mark Krynsky LifestreamingCrap.

(Although I suppose I should be glad that Arik Hanson didn’t beat him to it, with his “Everything I learned about social media, I learned from Barry Manilow” suggestion.)

Mark was calling on me to refute a post I wrote several weeks ago asking what the big deal was about lifestreaming. That post generated a healthy discussion as readers tried to help me understand what value sites like Tumblr and Posterous added versus a traditional blog and other outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Mark, who authors the LifestreamBlog, left one of many great comments on the post.

I revisited the post and my initial stance. I wrote that original post from the standpoint of genuinely questioning and being curious about the value of lifestreaming, and not necessarily dissing or deriding the practice. A lot of the comments helped clarify my thinking. The most common reason people cited for lifestreaming was that it occupies the space “between Twitter and a blog” and provides an outlet for “off-topic” items that may be out of place on a subject-specific blog. Others use Posterous as a way to clip and save items from the Web, almost like a juiced-up Delicious account.

All are valid reasons, but so far I still haven’t found the time or interest to update (curate?) my own lifestream or really follow anyone else’s.

But, specific to Posterous, which seems to be the most popular lifestreaming tool right now, I will say that I do see the potential from an ease-of-use standpoint. The ability to send in blog posts via e-mail directly to Posterous is very compelling for someone who wants to blog or share information but doesn’t want to deal with a complicated (or even a simple) CMS. And Posterous makes it very easy to record audio clips and send them directly to the site. It’s a way to start creating content with extremely low barriers to entry.

Another interesting “group lifestreaming” experiment took place at Social Media Breakfast Houston. Bryan Person created a Posterous account and had attendees e-mail info and photos. I could see this type of format working for events and conferences as a place to have people collectively contribute content (holy alliteration). The concept is similar to Collecta, a site that pulls in Tweets, photos, and more for specific hashtags.

So, I’m not sure that asking a question can really be “wrong”, but I’ll certainly admit that my eyes have been opened to many more possibilities for lifestreaming. Heck, I may even get around to updating my Posterous account one of these days.

Thanks to Mark and everyone else who participated in my little Twitter/blog/crowdsourcing experiment. For now, writer’s block averted.

3 reasons even “social media types” still need a resume

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Remember Elle Woods and her scented, pink-paper resume in Legally Blonde? She’d be an anomoly today, as most people don’t print paper resumes anymore. But despite lamentations that “Google is the new resume” or “Resumes are useless in the Internet age,” you still need one if you plan to apply for a position at a large company. Even a social media position.

While those of us who blog, tweet, post, message and tag each other all day long would like to think that our online presence is enough to stand on its own as a testament to how smart and savvy we are, the human resources department is still going to want you to submit a formal application, which often includes uploading a resume. If you’re trying to land a job with a funky little start-up or a tiny shop with a handful of employees, then the resume matters less and all of your other online work will likely be a bigger factor. But if you’re looking for a job with a big brand or company, have it ready.

I’ve worked very closely with the HR department in some of my previous jobs, so I’ve had the chance to observe some of the machinations that go along with trying to hire someone at a large company. Here are three reasons why, no matter how sexy your blog, Posterous, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or “personal brand’ might be, you still need to have a resume:

1. Your blog can’t be entered into a corporate resume database

There are several reasons big corporations use resume database-systems like BrassRing or HireGround. Probably the most important one is compliance. In order to be in compliance with myraid hiring laws with acronyms like OFCCP, EEO, and FLSA, companies with more than 100 employees need to show ratios of applicants to interviewees to hires, show that they have consistent hiring practices across the company, and show that they actively sought out diverse candidates.

Making each candidate go through an online hiring system, which usually includes a resume upload and screening questions, allows for easy data collection for compliance purposes. Companies can’t run your blog or Google profile through its screening processes when it comes time to file compliance reports each year.

2. The first cut of candidates may be made by someone who doesn’t know what a blog is

Often an HR associate sorts through the company resume database– sometimes arbitrarily, sometimes by keyword– to find an initial group of candidates to screen. This is where networking is huge. If you submit your resume online, it can be a total crapshoot whether it even gets viewed. But if you know the hiring manager or someone who can pass your resume along and help it move to the top of the pile, you’re in a much better position.

In all likelihood, however, the HR associate probably isn’t going to find and read your blog. It would be extremely time consuming to do that for each candidate in an initial screen. They may check you out on Google or LinkedIn in a cursory manner, but their goal is to fill the role as quickly as possible. That’s their metric. So unless someone tells them to flag your resume, you’re at the mercy of whether or not you appear in the database search results (so make sure you have the appropriate keywords in your resume).

3. Many companies still aren’t comfortable with social media for the hiring process

The mere fact that a company would hire for a social media position is a step in the right direction, but if they’re looking for someone with expertise in the area, it’s because they lack it. The hiring manager may not know where or how to start screening candidates based on their social presence. Should they be looking for quantity or quality of blog posts? Does number of Twitter followers matter? How many LinkedIn connections should the candidate have? Why aren’t they on FriendFeed? What is FriendFeed? Corporate HR and hiring managers are used to resumes, comfortable with resumes, and still expect resumes. They’re not quite sure yet how to integrate social media into established hiring practices.

Even a company like BestBuy, ahead of the curve on social media adoption, didn’t quite know how to structure a traditional job posting for its Emerging Media Manager role. Kudos to them for reaching out to the community and crowdsourcing ideas for key skills and requirements for the position. But anyone who applies  for the role must do so by submitting an application and uploading a resume via BestBuy’s corporate career site.

Yes, it would be great if someday we could all just let our work stand on its on merit wherever it happens to live online and not have to put together verbose and formal resumes. You certainly should mention and even highlight your online outposts on your resume (at least your blog and LinkedIn profile), and as you move further along in the hiring process there’s a greater chance that someone in the hiring process will take the time to look at your work. Just don’t expect the traditional resume to disappear any time soon.