The Wall Street Journal ran an article this week offering a blueprint for those who are thinking of heading into business on their own, even in rough economic waters. Writer Richard Greenwald’s feature: How to Succeed in the Age of Going Solo, offers real time guidance and doesn’t pull any punches with regard to the challenges that might come your way.

The article had me thinking and asking questions of fellow colleagues who have contemplated heading into the uncertain waters of being a free agent. While fear of financial insecurity came into play, surprisingly many were a little gun shy when it came to the concept of self promotion. Diving into the info-overloaded marketplace might be intimidating, especially for those whose social media experience is limited to Facebook.

In this WorkLife Nation webisode,  Marketing and Leadership strategist David Meerman Scott – author of World Wide Rave – weighs in on the importance of embracing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as a good start toward going solo.

Can the use of social media shine a spotlight on work life concerns and move people toward positive radical change? Ask Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordon. She just might say so. Queen Rania describes herself on Twitter as, “a mum and a wife with a really cool day job.”  This past December at Le Web, the international technology conference in Paris, Queen Rania explained, “Real Time is the new Prime Time.” She made the comment while speaking about the use of social media to launch social change and awareness. Her presence on social media sites such as Twitter, (@QueenRania) earned her YouTube’s Visionary Award. “A monarch with a mission,” she commented magnified by more than a million Twitter followers.

Washington is not aflutter on work life issues

Queen Rania is known for her social activism in her quest to break down cultural stereotypes and champion education. So I ask – why not use social media more effectively to cause a Tsunami of discussion on more effective work life policy, legislation, practices, and initiatives? Some may argue it’s already happening. Look at the impact of A Woman’s Nation, the project by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress.  It spurred discussion, and it grew legs because of its on-line efforts. The message was dispersed in real time across a number of media platforms.

The fuel for changing work life policy must emerge from that type of grassroots level or miraculously come from companies which understand the value of their human capital – people – in the workplace. And the message needs to happen consistently, authentically and across all social media platforms in real time. A seemingly impossible feat in our 24/7 world, but a necessary one that can be effective when messages go viral and generate buzz. I’m not holding my breath for family leave, paid leave, paid sick leave or the Healthy Families Act to gain traction in a Washington that is still bickering over health care reform.

Using social media to change the work life narrative

Conversation on work-family conflict is stirring on-line, but it has not even approached critical mass. The narrative around work life issues is still finding its voice. But I’m inspired by Queen Rania, who had this to say at the Le Web conference:

“Today we have the world at our fingertips, not as it was 5 days, or 5 days or 5 minutes ago, but as it is right now….the web is more human than ever before as we life stream the details of our lives existence.”

The Queen Mum added, “digital advocacy could translate to analog action.” Her Majesty claims we’re at the tipping point because networks like Twitter are inherently change agents as a , ” source for news, a  platform to collaborate, and a mouthpiece to mobilize.” Case in point – the worldwide reaction to the earthquake in Haiti.  Didn’t social networks move people to action?

However,  for real change to occur, history often shows us the audience must be involved at the tipping point of chaos to engage. For example, Decades of corruption and poverty in Haiti apparently wasn’t enough for the world to take action. It took an earthquake to pay attention.

Work Life Reform

Statistics support the case to reform work life practices. Better flexibility for example, can boost employee engagement and productivity. But such talking points need to be articulated not just in a press release, but through human dialogue. We need to put a human face to the work life bubble which is about to burst, from the employee AND the employers perspective.

We need a new “real time” narrative. When the human component enters the viral webisphere it brings new believable voices to the forefront, sparks conversation and galvanizes a group with an emotional human bent that can hit home without entering into victim mode.

Perhaps the tipping point is here. The perfect storm has arrived with women now encompassing more than half the workforce, men just as concerned with work life conflict as women and companies still pulling back on hiring as they live in the shadows of fear they’ll be legislated into submission. Grab a Twitter handle and speak your mind. Someone has to budge, and it ain’t gonna be Washington.

Click here to watch Queen Rania’s address at Le Web.

This weekend NPR aired my feature on All Things Considered which gave a taste of the job hunt in the social media landscape. You can click here to listen to Socializing on Line can Get you a Job. Can you nail a job by playing your cards right on-line? There are numerous variables and far too many to get into in my three-minute time slot, so I wanted to share some fuel for thought here at WorkLife Nation. 

In the feature, I interviewed the author of the Personal Branding Blog and author of Me 2.0, Dan Schawbel. Also in the segment was Steve Rubel, author of Micropersuasion.com and SVP/Director of Insights at Edelman Digital. Rubel authored Edelman’s white paper on Digital Trends for 2009 which included a view on an emerging trend which he calls Corporate All-Stars (blogging company executives who are building their personal brand while marketing their company).

Rubel and Schawbel made some valid points about why the  job hunt in today’s 2.0 era is about more than just on-line eye candy. 

1. The personal brand on-line is a needed addendum to the paper resume:  Schawbel says the 21st Century practical need for one to create a personal brand on line ups the ante regarding competition.  ”Employers are using social networks as background checks. Personal brands are much more visible than before because of social media, so you have promote and protect yourself at the same time. You can use personal branding to maintain your on-line reputation as you develop and grow your career.”
2. Excellence in performance trumps anything: Rubel says you can be plastered across every social media site but unless you can deliver the goods – you’re dead in the water. “I think excellence will always prevail. You want to make sure you’re doing what you’re doing –  and doing it well.  But excellence and having a personal brand can help you , especially if that brand is being used to connect you to customers, partners and others who can help the company. In fields like in IT for example and marketing, that’s pivotal. Ultimately, if you perform, fill a role and have a track record of success, you’ll do well in your career.”
3. Accountability is crucial: Schawbel says beware of everything you put on line and your behavior at work. Both can equally influence your career path. “To be the commander of your career is to control your destiny.  The key is to be accountable for your career and to be the driver on-line and at work. Things are not going to happen for you – you have to make them happen. That means letting your managers and directors know what you are doing, and the value of your work. Keeping your on-line profile up to date is part of that.”
4. You don’t have to be Madonna to strike a pose at work or on-line to garner attention: Rubel says anyone can stand out in our web 2.o world. “ I think you have to be known in a niche. And that can be on a message board, LinkedIn, Facebook or a Facebook group , it doesn’t not have to be massive. You can have an influence on a small scale where ever there are people who are looking to you as a peer and a trusted source of Information.”
5. Being a digital native can help you in your career depending on the workplace culture: “If a company views social networking and social media as important to them they will target employees who they feel can help them build relationships –  while understanding their business. They are looking for those digital natives. Is it widespread?  Not necessarily. It depends on the industry, subject matter and the culture of the company. But I think it’s going to be much more widespread as companies recognize  they need a footprint in social media to build relationships.”

Networking, especially within the social media landscape has been the game of choice for many as they reassess their career choice and jobs. A close second; the master-minding groups popping up in local arenas to discuss career path.  But here’s another form of engagement to muddle through this “chaos career economy:”   meeting with like-minded souls in a collective evolutionary leap of faith. No freaking agenda – just a deep conscious plunge into the void to experience what emerges. That’s what a bunch of us did recently.

Just four of us dished on whatever came up.  All wanted to take our work to a new level – but we didn’t know what that would look like. The guidelines were simple: no agenda but a commitment to keep an open mind, an open heart, and to suspend all judgement of what people were saying.

What emerged was a mishmash of stuff:  work life balance, integration, flexibility, career direction, human values, goals, family, animals, children and what brought joy into our lives inside  - and outside  of the career sphere. 

For three hours one conversation lead to the next and by the end of the gathering, every one of us came away with all or one of the following: 

1. A new blog post idea
2. A new contact
3. A new resource related to product or service
4. A refreshing take on our careers
5. A new appreciation of our colleagues work and our own value

There was not one person sitting at that table who didn’t want to cancel that evening due to myriad reasons, but some sort of latent curiosity or trust in the unknown brought everyone to the table – albeit kicking and screaming. It provided an opportunity to just stop the flow of the day, enjoy a meal and good company. The fruits of this seemingly laborious task couldn’t be measured. Invaluable, by all accounts. It became an organic unfolding of conscious attention to just being human.

The greatest gift was an opportunity to switch the career lens to “open and inviting”. To allow whatever needed to come forth – emerge as human beings. How refreshing. Any of you out there just mixing to mix, to build relationships without agenda. Please share!

Thomas Clifford, aka Director Tom,  was just laid off from his job as a corporate video director. Having worked with this brilliant soul, I didn’t Tweet or e-mail to check on his fine being. Instead, I picked up the phone and called him. An “G, R U doin’ ok,” didn’t seem appropriate. 

Human contact is rapidly becoming a novelty in our digital age. But for job seekers like Tom, the human face-to-face networking and social media route is the one-two punch crucial on the path to employment or a new career.

Director Tom (who is totally cool with me gabbing about his dilemma, here’s his Hire Tom website) has been an avid social media wizard for some time. He cautions to “develop your on-line and off-line network now, so if the net gets yanked out from under you, you’ve got a good start.”

The yanking wasn’t immediately apparent to Tom, he told me. Nevertheless, he’d been building his on-line network for well over 3 years for marketing and branding purposes. Tom lost his job last Thursday. He shared his three-day step-by-step play, into his job hunt:

1.    Tom created a “Hire Tom” web page associated with his blog. “I wanted one place for people to go and within a few minutes, to decide, ‘Hey, I think we should talk to this guy.”

2.   Tom contacted close friends and associates via e-mail to alert them he was looking for work, and that the Hire Tom page was activated.

3.   LinkedIn was the next stop.

       a.    Tom changed his update status to, “seeking employment.”

       b.    He made the commitment to refresh his status update on a regular basis, to keep current.

       c.    He e-mailed his primary connections on LinkedIn, to let them know he was looking for work.

       d.    Next up, he changed his main URL to the Hire Tom page.

       e.    Finally, in bunches, he has begun to forward his “updated profile” to connections who might be able to                        spread word of Tom’s employment interests. (There is a button that says ‘forward your profile to a                                  connection’) “Instead of blasting everyone at once, I’m splitting it up so I can respond in a timely way.”

4.   Twitter is the next stop for Tom. “I intend to build momentum with LinkedIn then implement my Twitter strategy,” said Tom. He has about 2000 followers and is very active on Twitter. He’ll send DM’s or Direct Messages to the people he feels will help him best spread the word on his skills as a corporate film maker – to the right audience. Tom has already linked his Twitter feed –  to his Friend Feed (social media aggregator) account so it updates automatically.

The overnight strategy that Tom came up with was quite successful. He received wonderfully supportive responses. “It was actually interesting, one person sent links to networking events and industry events that related to my profession. It wasn’t just a blanket response – but specific action items.” All his work in just a few days lead to seven meetings  already scheduled for this week. Also in the pipeline, networking events and job fairs.

“You network within your individual industry all the time, the techniques might be different but the intention is the same whether you’re on-line or in person,” he said adding, “The intention is to meet, grow and connect with interesting people, creating new opportunities.”

Finding a job on-line requires an enormous amount of discipline, commitment and a bit o’ luck. Slate’s Farhod Manjoo deconstructs the process in his article, How to Find a Job: Forget Monster, Try Facebook. For more information on job hunting on-line  - head to SecretsoftheJobHunt.com and Jason Alba’s JibberJobber.com where you’ll find a link to a webinar designed to help job seekers use LinkedIn. It’s called, appropriately, LinkedIn For Job Seekers.

“You need to be top of mind, cause there’s so much noise out there,” said Successfool.com blogger Alejandro Reyes on his Successfool TV live streamed program Wednesday night. But how one accomplishes that feat is a matter of great debate.

This brought to mind the conundrum of balancing the work/life scenario with maintaining a solid career path in a sensory overloaded environment; one which exalts the Tweet. It came up during a lunch meeting today with a colleague.

” Judy Martin, seriously, how important is it for me to tweet?” she asked with a little tone of synicism. 

“If you don’t Tweet, you’ll be left behind at the station, ” I said, to which I received a look of puzzlement with a little touch of shock. Actually, I think she thought I was a little intense in my opinion. But I truly believe that social media is the single most important way to market yourself whether you work for yourself or someone else.

I think about it as expanding the viewer base of those looking to do business with you – or those keeping track of your influence in a given career or niche – in an unobtrusive fashion. Through the portals of social media, people, companies, and business  - will find you. That is, if you have a unique voice that differentiates you from the rest of the pack. 

Bowing to the altar of the personal brand is all abuzz in the blogosphere right now, but you have to define your skills, voice, and value in laser-sharp talking points to be heard above the rest. That doesn’t happen overnight and can eat into your personal life.

Just tossing random thoughts on Twitter  without a consistent and concrete message, will have you drowning in a mushy sea of sycophants.  If you’re burning the midnight oil just to stay on top of Twitter, you can crash, which is what my colleague was concerned about.

So in the interest of better balancing the great work-life merge in our WorkLife Nation, with forging ahead into the social media landscape on Twitter to further your career, here are a few suggestions. I call them suggestions because some believe Twittering should be a more spontaneous organic process. 

1. Create your Twitterfield of expertise: You can tweet about anything you want, but if you’re trying to establish your voice or brand, stick with twittering useful information that others in your niche would consider valuable. This will enhance your reputation and give others a look inside your brain and business acumen. 
2. Limit your Twittertime, within reason: I post at certain times of the day, generally on material that I have bookmarked. But if I am inspired in any given moment by something I have read or heard, I might be compelled to Tweet. In a seriously compelling moment of Twitteritis – I limit myself to one post and one Re-tweet. Set your own rules of discipline.
3. Drink water and take deep breaths during Twittersessions: Heading into the Tweetisphere can easily suck the life out of us due to info-overload. Drinking water slows things down a bit as the rapid fire of Twitter pummels your brain and body. It’s a stimulator and provides an adrenalin rush. Promise yourself a tall drink of water during a session and a deep breath every time you Re-Tweet.
4. Beware of following –  everyone who follows you. Tweeting is not all about you, but it is about your interests or niche. While Twitter is a relationship building community, if you follow everyone,  it takes a heck of a lot longer to sift through all the tweets for the ones useful to you. Some might argue – the more followers – the more exposure. My feeling is that having solid followers who you can identify with is more productive. I feel this allows a for deeper experience, more twitter face-time to get to know your niche community.
5. Think before you Tweet : If you’re having a rough day – think twice before tweeting. You might want to vent elsewhere. The 140 characters that you divulge might do you harm and create more angst. If you can’t tweet something nice- don’t tweet at all. Emotional tweeting can hurt your credibility. 

Work life flexibility strategies are grabbing attention even in the wake of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. As companies struggle to stay afloat and keep their employees engaged, there’s talk in our WorkLife Nation that perhaps corporations are starting to identify the value of implementing flexibility practices – instead of wielding the ax.

Global consulting firm, Manpower, just released a survey which reflects U.S. employers’ hiring outlooks from April to June of this year.  67% of  the companies polled said they would hold the line on hiring until the economy sees an improvement. CFO Magazine breaks down the numbers as does Bloomberg. 

That means that these companies must do more with less, which perhaps forces a more constructive look at flexibility arrangements.

This I know has the Conference Board’s Work Life Conference all a buzz down in New Orleans. Gleaned from tweets from a colleague, Cali Yost, (@CaliYost) who is the CEO of Work+Life Fit, there’s a lot of talk on the issue. Prior to heading south for her speaking engagement, Cali penned this blog for Fast Company which is an overview of the issue of flexibility in challenging times: Mangers Uphold Fiduciary Responsibility with Alternatives to Layoffs: Expanding the Cost/Benefit Analysis.

Here’s a short compilation of what’s been streaming out of the conference courtesy Cali. 

1. Yoursabbatical.com wins innovation award.
2. IBM presenting use of Second Life for conference.
3. Social Media and its potential for Work Life.
4. 73% of IBM managers manage teams that aren’t in the same location.
5. Accenture wins award for for combining work life with retained talent strategy.
6. Carol Evans from Working Mother receiving media award.
7. Reports there’s a bi-partisan senate study group on workplace flexibility.
8. State and National stats on Work Life being presented by the Families and Work Institute.

While not necessarily conference related, this is most certainly worth mentioning with regard to flexibility practices. In a post by CV Harquail (@cvharquail) of the blog Authentic Organizations, she wrote that sometimes business decisions made with the best of intensions have “unintended repercussions.” Check out her post: 

Flexible Downsizing and Sexism: Should we be worried?

Four  year-old  Max Frank is battling cancer on Long Island. His mom, Sandi, is a former social worker turned stay-at-home mom. The divorced single mother of two can’t work due to the healthcare demands of taking care of Max and his six year-old brother.  But social media put a real human face to the story and generated an emotional reaction from the public which spread rapidly.

Community newspapers used to be the venue to share such a local story, but because of the social media tools of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, the little boy’s story also triggered an uptick in the fundraising capabilities of those who are trying to help the family. And it happened at the speed of light. The merging of our working and living experience is happening in every moment and this is a perfect example of the successful integration of the two worlds.

“Facebook alone has made the fundraising process more efficient and more economical,” says Kristine Marrale who for the last two years has been raising money for Max’s care. “If worded properly with pictures to back up your event, you can touch more people.”

Such widespread vertical tools enhance the e-mail process. Along with the human element which includes the little boy’s story and pictures, came the backing of a social network of trusted people. Marrale was able to cook up her latest fundraising effort within three weeks – as opposed to two months. A particular benefit to using her social networks was how colleagues and local businesses stepped up to the plate to help the cause.

Vista Hill lead singer, Sherman Arnowitz, said due to Facebook alone “we expect to get twice as many people at the concert due to that vertical range of social media.”

Here the rundown of the “trickle-up” impact of social media in this case:   

1. A local band called Vista Hill found out about Max and his needs through a friend.
2. Vista Hill contacted Marrale to offer a fundraising event.
3. The venue, The Metropolitan Lounge  (details for event here as well) was donated.
4. An event page was set up on Facebook for the evening concert.
5. Within days the event was tapped by 600 people who started responding to the invite.
6. Whoever hooked into the event site, sent out the event invite to their lists – now we’re probably talking more than a thousand people being informed.
7. Local businesses found out or were solicited for raffle prizes which range from custom made jewelry to a ski weekend at a resort.

Now this. You have just become part of the process. The concert starts at 8pm Saturday night at the Metropolitan Lounge in Glen Cove. Hope to see you there!