Happy New Year 2010

           Happy New Year to All

How to Ensure Your LinkedIn Profile Is Effective

Is your LinkedIn profile as effective as it could be? While you can see your “profile completeness” score on your profile page, it doesn’t measure profile effectiveness — how good your profile is at attracting contacts, generating leads and showing off your skills. Use this checklist to ensure your profile is thorough, effective and updated.

1. Use the name you’re known by. Perhaps your name is Robert, but most people know you as Rob or Bob. Or, for women, perhaps you worked under a maiden name for years. Use the name that most people know you by professionally. Cover all your bases by using your main name in your basic information and mention any other names elsewhere such as in the “Professional Headline” field, or in your recommendations.
2. Upload a professional photo. It’s worth the price to use a professional photographer.
3. Create an effective Professional Headline. Add a “Professional Headline” in the “Edit My Profile” page. This is a short bio that sums up what you do. Mine says, “Content Maven aka writer and editor behind meryl.net.”
4. Pick the industry that best represents what you do. Alternatively, you could use your clients’ industry if they all come from the same one.
5. Enter details for current and past positions. Highlight the activities that represent what you do or want to do by mentioning them first.
6. Write a summary that highlights your most important business information. Keep your summary clear and to the point. Remember you can list details under “Current Position.” The point of a summary is to give people instant information on what you do. I’ve looked at various summaries, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. I used to have a bulleted list, but switched to a short paragraph. When I come across long paragraphs in the summary, I find them hard to read and follow. The shorter ones hold my attention and get the point across fast.
7. List your web sites and blog. Rather than using the name of your web site and blog, use keywords that describe what you do. For example, I use “Writer for hire and blog” instead of “your own name notes,” the name of the blog.
8. Add your Twitter ID. If you haven’t already, add your Twitter name.
9. Request recommendations. It’s OK to ask people to recommend you, but make sure you ask the right people.
10. Write recommendations. Writing recommendations can lead to receiving recommendations.
11. Add applications to enhance your profile. If you have a blog, feed your blog entries into your LinkedIn account with one of LinkedIn’s applications. You can also turn LinkedIn into an online document collaboration platform.
12. Send selected Twitter tweets to LinkedIn. While you can connect your Twitter account to your LinedIn profile, many of us tweet too often or tweet about things that would be irrelevant to our LinkedIn contacts. Instead, select just the tweets you want to show up in your LinkedIn profile by adding the hashtag “#in” to the tweet. You can turn on this feature in Twitter Settings.
13. Select what to display in your public profile. People not connected to you can only see what you allow them to see by setting your Public Profile options. The more you reveal, the easier it is for people to know if they have the right person. Here, you can also set up your Public Profile URL, which shows up as to http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
14. Review your settings. Though I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, I still run into new features and settings. Settings cover everything from profile views and email notifications to personal information and privacy settings. You can provide advice on how people should contact you on the Contact Settings page. Mine says, “Email is the best way to reach me.”

I have been a strong and forceful proponent of social networking and self promotion in this new world order. I hope that this post will help you in truly distinguishing you from the millions of other HR professionals.

from Web Worker Daily by Meryl Evans

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All

I would like to wish everyone a very merry holiday season and a joyous New Year. 2010 should prove to be a much better year than 2009 and I hope that my blog content will be even better and more informative for you.

Bill Stevens

Goals vs. Objectives and Strategy

First, lets give a quick clarification of definitions. Goals are your general intentions, the big picture aims or you or your company.

Your objectives are the outcomes that represent achievement of that goal. Things you can actually observe. In order to be classified as an objective, you have to measure them. You need a way of defining whether you have or have not completed them successfully.

Strategies are the action plans you’ll execute to reach the objective. Tactics are the pieces and parts of the strategy:

• GOAL: To increase our company’s footprint through participation in social media.
• OBJECTIVES: Increase our blog subscribers by 15% in 6 months. Grow our LinkedIn connections by 250 members (a 25% increase) by the end of the year. Establish a Facebook Page with 500 fans within 6 months to 9 months
• STRATEGIES: Develop a strategy or set of strategies for each one. It is a roadmap for how you will get there.

So that is the set hierarchy. Set these rules in place for 2010 to increase your exposure to the world and build your social media portfolio.

Skipping the Four Key Elements of HR

I had a discussion with a former colleague last week and I must say it was a very interesting and spirited discussion. My former colleague said that she was tired of trying to persuade people to think in HR terms. Yikes I said to myself, thinking in "HR terms". Where was she coming from?
She went on to say that she felt that HR was losing its' edge in the company. Yikes, I said again to myself, what has she been doing from a leadership angle yet alone from a business prospective?

Well, I am sure there are a lot of HR professionals thinking like her given the economy, job losses, pay freezes, and training all but abolished. I look at this as an opportunistic time to really show wheat you as HR professionals are made of: strong business instincts, financial expertise, interpersonal relationships at all levels of the organization, and leadership acumen. If you have forgotten these key elements of HR then you really need to rethink your profession.

In these trying times this is were the true HR professional steps up to the plate and helps the CEO drive the business through the economic storm. Remember these key essentials and build on them each and every day:

• strong business instincts - see and drive innovation and execution
• financial expertise - help the CFO on true business cost relationships and justify your budget that helps build the organization
• interpersonal relationships - without them at every level of the organization you will not understand what is really happening at the grass roots level
• leadership expertise/acumen - drive change and help all employees through the paradigm shifts that will drive business change and revenue growth.

So what are your thoughts on these key elements? Drop me an email at wgstevens2@gmail.com or through my Linkedin address.