I am always looking for new and bigger challenges, I have loved working wherever I have worked as any job I have ever taken have been my choice, not because I was forced to find a job, but because it have been the challenges that I wanted. However one of the most essential things in choosing my challenges (or jobs if you want), is who I work with and who I’m working for.

I look at education a lot different than most people, I simply don’t believe in 20 years study and 40 years of work. I believe these two things goes hand in hand every day of our working life, experience is worth more then any studies, but the ability to learn from other people’s experiences and from other people view on everything, is the best way I can develop myself.

There is no doubt people learn things in different ways, for me ideal learning is a mix of experience and learning from others and learning from the best is the most important. It’s usually not a problem finding people you can learn from when it comes to what you shouldn’t do, the hard thing is to find the people you admire and the people you feel you can learn from. Who you need around you obviously depend on where you are in your career, but as I see it, the better the people around you, the better you become!

How do you find the right people to work for? Networking is again a key here, when you know a person that you want to work for, don’t be affright to tell them. They might not work in a place where you can work right now and they might not have available space in their team or workgroup, but if you tell any leader that you would like to work with them (you can either specify a job or not) you can be sure that’s something they will appreciate and if it get to a interview situation they know you interest up from and might even give you a heads up around a job opening (unless you have given them a very bad impression of yourself).
Another time to look at this can be in a possible interview situation, try as well as you can to get to meet who you will be working for, before you go into a interview.
If you have been accepted for a interview and say you would like to meet you possible manager/supervisor etc beforehand for a chat, this is first of all a way for you to see if this is not someone you want to work with at all or on the other hand if you get a good impression you can use this in the interview as it will show a big interest and a very serious approach to that job interview. If the person like you, he/she is also very likely to put in a good word for you.

Learning from the best

A good few years back I had a fantastic boss, I worked for her about two years and she was the first really good boss I had worked with at that stage of my career. She had made me realize what I wanted to do in the future and she has been a key part of my early development and I really admired her for her skills.
One day I had a bit of a “wake up” experience with her, we were having a regular coaching session, where she finished of by saying that she “didn’t feel she had anymore to teach me, as she felt I had learned what she had to teach”.
When she said this I first felt a good bit of frustration, as she in my eye’s still had a lot to teach me, but later when I got to reflect over the situation, she might unintentionally have though me one of the most important things I have ever learned by doing that, I started to understand the importance of not getting to comfortable and when things get like that, find a way to develop in a new place or position and find new people to learn from.

I have listed a couple of my personal key points around personal development:

• Find places, challenges and jobs where you have the right people around you.
• Working for a lot of different good people in your field, gives you the best learning.
• Always search for new challenges and opportunities for development and take them!
• The higher the odds are for failure, the more you will learn. Remember success is just as well the ability to learn from mistakes and the ability to fail with no loss of enthusiasm, give you the courage to go for even more.
• Try not falling into the “it’s comfortable here, no need to move” trap
• Just because you have got where you are, does not mean you should slow down learning, however the way you learn might change over time, as instead of learning theory you might start to learn from other people’s experience.

Social Media’s the future and sooner or later most people and company’s will join in, the social media “revolution” might not be on the same level as when the internet first started, but it’s very big, so be aware and get Socialising!

What is Social Media really about? Well it’s about connection, its about creating a “closer” feeling with people, if you are a company it’s about making yourself more human to your customers and it give company’s a new chance of having a more open two way communication with customers. If your using it as a individual there’s just as many opportunities which I will describe below.

Social Media for Networking

The Social Media sites first start up as social networking places and by now we have seen quite a few coming and going, however some have stuck and really managed to get popular, like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. These sites cover different aspects, but are all part of the new Social Media wave.

With all the new Social Media’s it’s now become a lot easier to stay in contact with the connections you have got, but socially and professionally, but they also provide good opportunities to increase the network you’ve got. In my last post around networking I mentioned that helping people is one of the best and most efficient ways to build and extend networks, a lot of the new media’s provide good opportunities where you can help people, some through networking groups, some like Twitter by answering questions and by posting relevant and useful posts for your followers.

Social Media for Jobbing

The Social media’s are also extremely valuable if you’re looking for a new job or if you are looking for new challenges in the future, you can first of all build a networking through the social media’s and if you combine the social media’s with different other places like forums, workgroups and blogs etc, you can build a brand around yourself and show people the knowledge you have and where you expertise are and this is often where the jobs comes from.

Recruiters are looking at the networks they have, at the people they know and often ask for advise from their networks in finding a person for a specific job. One Social Media site, LinkedIn have also focused itself very much towards recurring, as you’re primary page is you CV/experiences and people can see the different recommendations you have. 

Social Media for Branding

A new type of branding has also been introduced, which have come partly through the social media’s and partly through the blogging communities.

There’s no doubt that communication around the world have changed massively the last couple of years and a lot of people have been able to brand their way through to both new employers, even bigger networking and even a lot of company’s have been created on the bases of this.

How do you brand yourself and how do you become more then just a name or a number?

A lot of people build up a community around their blog or websites, where a lot of the traffic comes from the social media’s, they manage to communicate to the audience they are targeting through their blog and they continue to increase the number of readers they have through their social networks, the different online and offline forums and workgroups they have and therefore manage to brand themselves in the specific area(s) where they operate.

Remember to BE Social

A couple of people and company’s have already got into a bit of trouble by forgetting the social aspect as Social Media’s, don’t over post, spam information about your products, your website or blog etc, be social and if people like what you communicate they will look into who you are and find your products. However if they get fed up they will stop following you and stop reading your post in which case your efforts are wasted.

Be Social and provide helpful knowledge to people and they will eventually look for your product and website, trust is the key word her.

How I use the different Social Media’s

There’s a lot of Social media’s out there and I have listed the one’s I personally use below:

Facebook: I primarily use Facebook for social networking with friends and people I have meet during life. I have lived and worked in 3 different countries and keeping track of all the fantastic people I have meet and enjoyed my time with is extremely important to me, but it also allow me to get updates about their lives and I’m able to help them if needed and the other way around.

LinkedIn: Where Facebook for me is very social, I use linkedIn for more business related networking, primarily people I have worked with, done business with or meet through my network. LinkedIn is also my CV, as I believe in “Jobworking” as in finding my future challenges through people I already know and trust, instead of putting my future in the hands of recruitment agency’s. There is quite a bit of headhunting going on at LinkedIn as well and knowing recruiters can also be good in giving you a heads up with certain jobs. Luckily I still love my job here in IBM so I haven’t had the need to use the job part of linkedIn as much yet.

Another part of LinkedIn is the groups and network setup, I have spend a lot of time on this, as again you can get to know people with similar interests or people working in related companies, it work a lot like forums where questions or different posts are made and commented on and if you find the right groups you can get very valuable feedback, that can both be on projects your working on, how to do specific analysis etc. people are always willing to help and if you help other people you will again be able to build network and increase your knowledge.

As linkedIn for me is the ultimate business networking tool, I have included a Link to Guy Kawasaki’s guide “Ten ways to use LinkedIn”

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html

Twitter: I use twitter for a couple of things, for one I get a lot of get links and information by following people with interest in the things that I’m working on, both “ordinary” people, but also “famous” people in the certain area’s that have my interest. If you find the right people to follow you get a lot of practical tips, websites and links and book suggestions etc. basically you stay up to date on what going on in the area’s they follow.

I also tweet different questions or issues I might have where it’s a very good tool for asking a larger group of people for help or advice and very quickly get a response and even start a debate on that specific topic.

Twitter can take a bit to get into, but when you do, it’s an extremely valuable stream of information and not just any information, the one you are interest in and want to read about.

Youtube: Some people don’t see this as a social media, but it depend how you use it. If you just like watching stupid video’s there not much social media over it, but if you maybe record smaller video clips for you blog or something similar, uploading the material to Youtube, can give you first of all a space to store it, but more importantly valuable feedback and if it’s good people that want to know more about you or you products etc.

Is Social Media really as effective as people say?

I just saw a report on Barack Obama and how he utilized the social media’s during his election campaign, I think it’s very interesting reading and it also shows the massive impact that the Social Media’s can and will have in the future in everything from finding a job & getting a promotion to the likes of big election campaigns and massive cooperate campaigns. It is time for innovations!

Read the report here: http://tiny.cc/TAWUD

Networking is one of the most, if not the most important way forward in the working world today.
If you are a good “networker” your chances of being successful in which ever job & business you are involved in increases more than you can imagine.

Networking from day 1 in a new company is one of the essentials, as when you start out your are likely to be introduced to people that will possibly become some of your most important contacts.

What is networking really about?

Networking is about helping people and the most important rule of networking is never consider what’s in it for you.

If you help people with something yourself (or even refer them to someone you know can help), it builds a relationship, trust and shows the person you know the area and what you are talking about and they will likely come to you if they have other challenges in the same area.

Why is this important? Well first of all a demand for your knowledge and skills is really one of the most important things in business, that’s how you develop and grow, it’s how you’re more likely recommended for anything and that could be a new job, an advisory role or anything else really.

The second is that when you help someone, they are a lot more likely to help you, so if you have a challenge and you could use their help, it’s usually a lot easier to get!

I have always said that the good things you do in life comes back 10 fold some day, so get helping people!

Is helping people the only way to network? No not at all, but it’s usually the fastest.

How do I start networking?

Well you started networking already, you know people and that’s a key, but how do you manage to make your networking more business focused and not just social?

First things first, take where you work, I’m sure there is people you can help even more than you do today. You also need to “get out there”, get to know people, not just in your own office, group etc, but meet people from all parts and layers of the company, and how do you do that? Again you need to seek the opportunities, attending social groups, courses, training classes, anything where you know you are very likely to meet new people that you haven’t meet before and then don’t be shy and sit in a corner talking with the one person you already do know!

What else can you do? What jobs or area’s interest you? Where do you want to expand your knowledge, you probably already know some people that you think are doing an interesting job, contact them and say you have some questions or are interested in the type of job role they do and if they would meet and discuss over lunch as you’re looking for some advise in that particular area etc. and again don’t be shy, people are generally very happy to help and yes most people eat once in a while, just remember though don’t be to pushy, while people like helping, they like helping friendly people

Another way of getting in contact with people is to be “referred” through a friend, if you again have someone you think does something interesting and you know someone that knows him/her, ask them if they could introduce you as you would like to get to know some more about the job that person does.

Mentoring is also a fantastic way to build very strong professional relationships, if you’re looking to develop in a particular role or to develop new skills, finding a mentor that is already very good in that area can be a massive boost – for both of you. (I will post a topic on mentoring later)

Networking, with who?

Everyone is the answer! Some people are very focused on networking only with people “higher” up the ladder than themselves and really you can grow your network a lot faster in the area you are in or people below you, and why would you do that? Well knowing the “big boss” is not a bad thing, but by knowing a lot of people around you are just as likely to have access to the same resource and maybe instead of using a lot of time getting to know one of them “big bosses”, one of the many people you get to know might introduce you to the “boss” when/if you need it. Personally I don’t care if people are above or below, the important thing is if they have skills and knowledge that I can use doing my job, taking particular decisions and of course the other way around.

Networking and that new job!

I will post a most specific “interview” guide later, but again when it comes to applying for a new job or having an interview for a new job, in the company where you are already employed, it’s key to make use of your networking skills and if you don’t know the person who’s going to be interviewing, get going, ask if they want to meet for a coffee as you are very interested in this new position and you want to understand a bit more of what they are looking for in a potential candidate etc. this is a must and it will help you big time, at least having had a good conversation with the person interviewing you makes a world of difference, both because  you’re familiar in his/her eye’s and because you are more conferrable with that person, also the more interest an interviewer can see you have in the job and the more eager you seem, the higher the chances of getting it.

Networking in networks where you are very skilled or want to learn about.

Nowadays it’s easy to find either forums, network groups and the likes in any area. If you’re extremely interested in finance go find a network/forum and start helping people with your knowledge, the more you help and the better answers the more your knowledge will be in demand.

Another key thing is that when you help people you learn, the best way of learning is teaching!

One of the thing I have implemented on the blog is called Google Friend Connect basically the tool allows you to logon and comment with external logon’s from a lot of other places, including Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account. This means there will be no need for registration if you are already signed up to any service in the Friend Connect program.

I hope you will all enjoy this blog going forward, all feedback is welcome!

Kind Regards
Mads Singers