I don’t make a habit of putting my life on display on the blog but I wanted to pass along some news that I’m excited about — and it’s a social media success story, too!

In a few weeks I will begin a new stint as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, teaching a course for a newly-developed social media marketing track of their MBA program. This is an add-on to the rest of my schedule — I’ll still keep up with my other commitments to teaching, consulting and of course … blogging!

I’m excited by this opportunity because I’ll be connected to some of the brightest students and faculty members in the country and get to test some of my ideas on social media marketing on a whole new level.

I absolutely love teaching so this is a great new challenge!

And like nearly every other business benefit I’ve accrued over the past two years, this one came courtesy of the social web. Of course I wouldn’t be teaching the class in the first place if I weren’t immersed in the channel myself but the actual opportunity came via my dear Twitter friend Christina “CK” Kerley, (@cksays).

I’ve followed CK on the web for more than a year now and she is one of the outstanding B2B marketing minds in the country.  I hang on her every tweet and post.  As luck would have it, she likes me too and soon we were building a friendship by exchanging ideas, phone calls and even a real life meeting in New York City a few months ago.

When she was asked for ideas of possible instructors for the new Rutgers MBA track, she recommended me. After a series of interviews, I was offered the position and in fact, we will both be teaching at this program, which will be a thrill.

The lesson I have learned over and over again is you just never know what will happen through your social media connections.  If you approach your audience with kindness, meaningful content and authentic helpfulness, good things happen.

In graduate school I took a class on “Leaders and Leadership” that I hoped would give me respite from the grind of finance and economics. It turned out to be one of the most interesting classes I ever attended and it set me on life-long study of leaders.

When I worked for Alcoa, there was one Group President who seemed to personify the best theoretical aspects of a leader. His name was George Bergeron, since retired to Maine and Florida, but there is not a week that goes by that I don’t think about a small sign he had on his desk:

“Leaders Dispense Hope.”

George was not a rah-rah kind of leader. He walked his talk without gimmicks, inspirational posters or “programs.” In fact, other than a few family pictures, that sign was the only adornment on his desk at all.

Those powerful three words sum up so much to me. To be in a position to “dispense hope,” you need to

• Be trusted
• Have a vision that others understand and believe in
• Be an effective communicator
• Rise above the every day office noise to deliver the signal
• Be recognized as the authority
• Have a real plan, not rhetoric
• Transcend politics
• Deliver authentic optimism

Like any executive in a  competitive environment, George had his detractors. But he rose above it all with dignity at every opportunity. No matter what was happening in the world, in the company, or with our customers, George dispensed hope.  A lesson in leadership for a world that needs a few lessons in leadership.

I would like to introduce Stuart Mease of Virginia Tech University to all of you. Stuart is a member of the {grow} community and flat-out one of the brightest guys I know. He made a name for himself with creative applications of social media to economic development and I’m pleased to present this timely guest post today:

This recent headline in The Wall Street Journal caught my eye: “Some firms struggle to hire despite unemployment.”

So let’s dispel this unemployment myth right now. There are jobs out there and plenty of them … unless you’re part of the Unserviced Workforce.

That may be an unfamiliar term to you.  There are three distinct job seekers in today’s labor market – white collar professional workers, blue collar skilled workers, and the Unserviced Workforce.

Unemployed white collar professional workers are being serviced by private third-party groups (headhunters). Their skill sets may be in high demand and companies are paying a premium for their services. Professions such as health care, engineering, information technology, and accounting are all in high demand regardless of region.

The blue collar skilled workers are being serviced by public third-party agencies (community colleges, workforce investment boards, employment commissions, staffing agencies, etc.). Typically their skill sets are also in high demand because companies try train a constant pool of candidates for these jobs. Professions such as manufacturing, trades, technicians are all in high demand.

The Unserviced Workforce is caught in the middle. Neither the public nor private sector is helping this group find jobs.  This segment is characterized by younger people with potential or upside; has some  higher education; good (but not billable) skill sets, and are looking for a “professional” job paying a salary between $25k-$50k, depending on the region. This is the critical mass of knowledge workers who are underemployed, over-educated, or who are leaving smaller regions for larger metropolitan areas in search of better employment opportunities.

Here are seven possible outcomes for the Unserviced Workforce:

1) Acquire new skills and move up

This will require continuing education and a commitment to the acquisition of demanded skills.

2) Humble yourself and move down

This will require accepting a lower standard of living and the realization that there is a surplus of people with the same skills sets in the market.

3) Start a business

This will require taking risk by starting small while still looking for a job, going to school, or working a platform job, and identifying government programs to assist you.

4) Move laterally between jobs in the Unserviced Workforce

These people will most likely not make an investment in continuing education or start a business. They may think they are better than blue collar jobs. Typically younger, these workers will bounce from job to job and never “get ahead.”

5) Remain unemployed

These people are still not humbled or motivated to get out of the unserviced workforce because they are waiting for the economy to turnaround and/or family/spouse supported.

6) Leave the region

These people believe “it’s not me” but the place I live that’s the problem. They are typically unattached or younger and are more capable of leaving or are forced to leave due to the severity of the regional economy.

7) Retire

These people are focused on years of work experience rather than result-based metrics. They are frustrated by perceived age discrimination in the recruiting process. They will re-enter workforce at a later time, perhaps working only part-time. Their decision depends on their nest egg and lifestyle.

If you are a job seeker and are reading this post, I challenge you to get out of the Unserviced Workforce by seeking Outcomes #1, #2 or #3. Inaction will leave you in Outcomes #4 and #5 and poor attitudes results in Outcomes #6 and #7.

There are jobs out there.  No public or private-sector program is going to create a job market equilibrium. It’s solely up to YOU — the job seeker — to stay out of the Unserviced Workforce.

Stuart Mease’s mission is “connecting people” to create mutually beneficial relationships. He is currently serving as the Director of Undergraduate Career Services in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @stuartmease.

The know-nothings.

You know who I’m talking about right?  Social media “marketers” who have never practiced marketing.  Maybe have never even had a sales job or a college-level marketing class. But they’ve created a Facebook page and have 500 followers on Twitter so somehow that makes them a guru.

“You can’t walk out your house without bumping into a social-media expert today, said Forrester Analyst Sean Corcoran in a WSJ article. ”The reality is the space is still very much a Wild West.”

I’m not going to dwell on the shake-and-bake “experts” and their webinar info-mercials promising to unleash profits through the magic of follower lists and multi-level marketing scams.  Enough has been written about that. The point of this post is that there is a clash in the marketplace because there aren’t enough true social media marketing experts — with the emphasis on MARKETING — to go around.

Look at what’s happening on the demand side.  Ad spending on social networks world-wide is expected to rise 14% this year to $2.5 billion. Every advertising, marketing and public relations firm in the world wants a piece of the action and is looking for talent.   Consider these news bites from the past week:

• Universal McCann, is launching a social media practice this month called Rally.  “Social media is now part of all our clients’ plans; we can’t not be in this space,” says Matt Seiler, chief executive of Universal McCann.
• Publicis Groupe’s digital umbrella organization, VivaKi, says it also will open a social-media consulting practice this year.
• Pepsi’s Gatorade brand created a “Mission Control Center,” which is set up like a broadcast-television control room, to monitor the sports drink around the clock across social-media networks.
• Kraft hired 360i, a digital ad agency owned by Japan’s largest ad company, Dentsu  to monitor brands like Oreo and Jell-O.
• Microsoftis currently searching for a social-media firm to handle duties for its Xbox videogame system.

In other words, social media marketing is white freaking hot.

Now for the supply side of the clash.  Who is going to fill all these positions?   Unless you define success by the loosey-goosey standards of “engagement” and “conversations,”  there just aren’t many individuals out there who have actually demonstrated an ability to use social media to move the needle for a business.  And I don’t mean new “followers.”  I mean sales. Cash flow. New customers. 

If you have the fire-power and mega-budgets of Microsoft, Pepsi and the other big brands, you can certainly buy your way into success on the social web.   But the vast majority of businesses out there are going to be stuck with the no-nothings instead of the exceptional marketing talent they really need to grow their business.

The dirty little secret the know-nothings are keeping from you is that, with the rare exceptions, nobody wants to be Facebook Friends with your company. You’re going to need much more than an intern tweeting earnestly about your latest coupons to impact your bottom line.  We live in a society that is absolutely sick of being advertised to, sold to, and marketed to, which is why most people turn to Farmville and the social networks to ESCAPE commercialism. So if a know-nothing is promising that they have this figured out and they’re going to help your car dealership or clothes boutique be the next Old Spice succcess story by “listening” to the Twitter stream … well, be afraid.

At the end of the day making money on the social web — or anywhere — still gets down to MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS.  Research, strategy, planning.  Creating points of differentiation. Finding a unique way to delight your customers and out-smart  your competitors.  And then, using the social web as a channel. Maybe.

For most businesses trying to figure out what to do with all this social media stuff, forget about finding a social media expert. That’s a hammer looking for a nail. Find the best, most experienced marketing pro you can afford and let them figure out where it fits for you, if at all.

Can I hear an “amen?”

I’ve had an emotional week.  For the first time in my 28-year business career, I had to fire a customer.

This has been unprecedented. I’ve fired employees before of course.  I’ve lost customers to competitors.  I’ve rationalized customers through strategic renewal efforts … but I have never, ever simply given up on a client.

I know it was the right thing to do, because this client was sucking the lifeblood out of me to the point that it was dramatically affecting my work with OTHER customers.  And after a year of realizing a negative financial return — yes, you read that right, NEGATIVE return — it was time to cut my losses and walk away.

Although I worked hard and acted honorably throughout this debacle, I still feel like a bit of a failure.  Perhaps it’s similar to the remorse some folks feel when they look back at a divorce — was there anything I could have done differently?  And how will it affect the kids (my projects)?

My career has been dedicated to delighting customers, not kicking them out the door, so this is new territory for me.  Although I should feel energized now that the shackles are finally off, it seems like there’s a dent in a flawless track record.  I guess any time you experience a new feeling like this it’s an opportunity to grow.

And that’s what this blog is all about, right?

A fresh crop of marketing students is about to be graduated from the nation’s universities so at this time of year I normally get calls from friends, and friends of friends, asking me to talk to their kids about careers in marketing. I’m happy to oblige, but the conversations this year have been disheartening.  They have gone something like this:

ME: So do you have any experience on the social web?

STUDENT:  No. Well, I do have a Facebook page for my friends. Have about 3,000 of them.

And it goes downhill from there. I have spoken to five marketing seniosr from very good schools and only one was on Twitter or LinkedIn and none of them had ever blogged or done social media marketing on a job or internship.

I just have to ask … what is going on? My own daughter is entering her senior year, majoring in journalism and business at a very well-respected university, and has yet to have any significant mention of the social web in her classes.

I realize this is a difficult subject to teach … there is no text book on it and there probably never will be. Still, aren’t business schools totally amiss if they don’t at least teach students enough to help them land a job? Forget that … enough to to help them LOOK for a job?  I mean really … looking for a job and they’re not even on LinkedIn?

I haven’t seen any stats on this but if I had to guess, I would say 80 percent of entry level marketing jobs today involve some element of the social web. What the heck is going on in our colleges?

Do you have opinions from the field?

This has been a week of reminiscing for me.  I had a business opportunity come up that gave me a good excuse to talk to many industry old-timers, including several of my former bosses.  I started thinking about my first corporate job as a public relations specialist and how much I soaked in from the talented professionals all around me.

Part of my first job was to summarize important industry, business and customer news and have it typed in a standard format for worldwide distribution by 8 a.m.  Back then, that meant being in the office by 6 a.m., actually reading things called industry publications and business journals on something called “paper.”  And cut and paste literally meant cut and paste. But I still loved it. And I loved all those smart folks I looked up to.

I thought it would be fun to see what advice you gleaned from from your first boss that still rings true today. Here is some of mine:

• Enthusiasm matters.  Approach jobs that you dislike with enthusiasm and somehow they seem a little more tolerable. And, when you’re enthusiastic, you get noticed.
• Hustle.  Make it happen. Find a way to win. Overcome.
• The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer.
• Good writing matters. 
• You can’t always be popular, but you can always be fair. 
• A leader who is impatient is driven.  A new employee who is impatient is annoying.
• When in doubt, wear the tie.
• When you are at a company party, you’re still at the company … not a party.
• The keys to power in an organization are usually held by the administrative assistant.

What about you?  What words of wisdom do you carry with you from your first boss?  Please share in the comments below!

A few years ago, I was in a graduate leadership program at Carnegie Mellon University and took a class from a talented educator and author named Robert E. Kelly.  Dr. Kelly had just written a book called “How to be a Star at Work.” (disclosure: I am receiving no affiliate income from this or any other book!)

Honestly, I thought it was going to be one of those kick-your-feet-up, blow-off kind of classes, but it ended up being one of the most interesting sessions of the program.

We all know that certain people tend to rise to superstar level at work. They may not be smarter or harder working than others, but they have a certain “something” that seems to push them up the corporate ladder.

Dr. Kelly had a research grant to determine the factors that these high-fliers had in common. After all, if you could actually test for these factors, wouldn’t that have a powerful impact on corporate recruiting and training?  Turns out it wasn’t that simple, but after years of investigation he eventually found the magic formula.

According to Dr. Kelly’s research, one of those key characteristics of a corporate rock star is an ability to effectively network and find information quickly.  Let’s say you had two employees — Tom and Tammy — equally well-educated, enthusiastic and nattily-attired.  But Tammy had just one advantage — she knew how to use technology to rapidly find the people and resources she needed to accomplish a task while Tom picked up a phone and started calling people in the company directory. The research showed that Tom had no hope of ever catching up and the more complex the task, the further Tammy would outshine him.

It makes a lot of sense.

I’ve already written about the importance of personal “technological adaptability” as an increasingly important life skill. But Dr. Kelly’s research seems to indicate that expert networking skills like an ability to navigate the social web can also be a crucial differentiator in your career.

So there.  Now you can explain to your spouse that all that time you’re wasting on Twitter is actually a career-advancement opportunity! You may be just 140 characters away from the tweet smell of success.

Illustration: toothpastefordinner.com

One of our local news anchors, Tearsa Smith, has done a masterful job using the social web to connect to viewers in a personable, accessible manner. She’s a best practice — bringing her news, her news station, and her life to her fans with energy, enthusiasm and humor.  Tearsa can be found journaling through Twitter and Facebook at all hours it seems, especially if there is breaking news. In a world of arms-length celebrity, she is refreshing and unique.

Here is an interview with Tearsa covering her personal social media strategy:

Tearsa, how did you get involved in the social web? Was it an initiative from your news station, a personal decision, or both?

I’ve always been a fan of social media starting with MySpace and then moving on to Facebook. After connecting with every person I have ever encountered (I have more than 1,100 “friends” on my personal Facebook account) I was a bit against my news director’s push to get the newsroom involved with Twitter. A girl can only spend so many hours online. While reluctant, I now find Twitter to be the most engaging of the social media sites. It’s been very interesting talking with viewers about their take on stories, questions they have and just about life in general.  

As you think about how you show up on the social web, is it connected to any personal or professional goals?

I don’t think I went into this with any “goals.” I am awful about calling friends and family and social media has been a great vehicle to stay connected and still juggle the million other things I have going on daily in my life.

The more I am engaged online I do start to see how online media can help anyone professionally. The goal is to be smart and not say everything you might be thinking – unless that is your goal. I have 1,500+ followers and you never know through networking if a potential future employer is waiting in the wings and “following” me. Do I want to come across as smart, likable, witty and well rounded or bitter, disgruntled and unapproachable? Anyone with a skill or interest in a particular industry has the opportunity to “show-off” without seeming pushy or desperate for a job.  

Can you point to any ways your participation in Twitter and Facebook has benefited you professionally?

I have two separate lives in the social media world. I have two separate accounts for Facebook – one is public and the other is private. On Twitter I merge the two a bit more. Personally it has been so interesting to catch up with people from my past and family members. On a professional note I LOVE interacting with viewers daily. They remind me daily that we aren’t just reporting stories but that what we report affects real people and their lives for the good or bad.

A lot of fellow journalists don’t see the benefits of social media but I think it is a great tool to connect. I have had really good story ideas pitched to me via Twitter/Facebook because people feel like they know me or they can trust me.  As journalists we miss the mark if we just spit out news headlines throughout the day – that’s what the official TV station/newspaper’s Twitter/Facebook/MySpace account is for. It’s my job to ask people what they think and if they have any follow ups to enhance the story.    

About how much time do you spend on Twitter/Facebook each day?  Is it difficult to keep up with fan requests?

You don’t even want to know.  Actually I don’t even want to know. I am on from 4 am-11:30am while I’m at work. I am on after work hours on my Blackberry throughout the day and of course I pop online before bed on my laptop. You do the math! It’s not hard keeping up with fan/viewer requests as long as they request information from public pages.  All of this while balancing work, a household, husband and 1 year old daughter.

How do you handle the inevitable invasiveness that occurs when a TV personality opens up for public display?

I am very guarded about what I say and how I say it. It is very rare that I disclose where I am until I have left the location. Exceptions are made for work sponsored events where I am not alone. I think this is a good idea for anyone, especially women looking at their safety. For example if I am out shopping I don’t say where I am but I will still give any observations that I think are funny or interesting at the time. Over time, you will get people who feel especially close to you and it’s up to me to draw that fine line between engaging and overstepping boundaries. Usually I can wiggle out of invasiveness with a little humor.

What are my chances I can follow in your footsteps as a popular news anchor?  Be honest, Tearsa.

Honestly, Mark … you just don’t have the hair for it … Sorry.

In my recent post on the time-sucking dragon known as the social web, Jody Pirello offered some comments on how she keeps up with the latest trends. I think this is a critical career skill these days and I encouraged her to flesh it out into a post. It is our great fortune that she did — a MUST READ!  Here’s Jody:

I evolved into eMarketing differently than many of you probably did.  I started my career as a programmer.   As a developer I had to learn how to stay current, keep abreast of upcoming changes, and learn how to separate the here-to-stay from the gone-tomorrow. Those skills help me today, too.

Here are a few of the ways I do it (or at least, try to do it)

1. Use downtime wisely - I’m amazed at all the little bits of time I have available – waiting for a conference call to start, waiting on late team members, or even standing in line at the post office.  My iPhone gets a workout during these times!
2. Learn, always -  I work professional development into my every day life.  I watch video presentations while eating lunch, listen to podcasts during my  commute, and intentionally blur the line between professional and personal.  I’ll frequently have a conversation over drinks at the bar on a Friday night that translates into something I use Monday on the job.
3. Cultivate a learning ecosystem - No matter how committed I am I just can’t do it all.  I rely on a set of friends and colleagues to broaden my knowledge.  I have a friend who knows all things mobile, a colleague who’s a whiz at CPG , and another friend who has a thing for twitter apps.  And hopefully I contribute to the mix with my web development and project management knowledge.
4. Be selective - I can’t keep up with everything so I choose a set of problems, verticals and technologies to focus on.  This goes hand-in-hand with my learning ecosystem.
5. Work portably - I’d be nowhere without tools and services that allow me to work effectively on my terms.  Two of my favorites are delicious and Google docs.  They’re hardly earth-shattering but they have a big impact on my productivity.  If I come across an article that I’m interested in but don’t have the time to read it right now, I add it to delicious.  Same thing goes if I’m at home and want to use a site while at work.  Google docs is great for enabling me to do my work wherever I may be.  I write most of my blog posts in google docs too, and its one-click sharing allows me to get input and feedback without needing to merge comments.
6. Use my Google Foo - Knowing how to use search engines effectively is a must-have skill.  If you want to extend your Google knowledge or even just do a little brush up, take a look at Google’s search tips.   Don’t discount the less popular engines either – occasionally you can discover real gems by broadening to one of the others.
7. Prioritize blog reading - I have “must read” and “daily read” categories in my RSS reader.  I’ve made it a rule to never do the dreaded “mark all read” to these folders.  I may not read them everyday (yep, sometimes I even get behind on the “daily read” folder) but I do make sure I read them all – usually by the end of the weekend.

I’ve outlined what works well for me – my working and learning styles.  The key has been to find tools and processes that I could adapt into my regular life without effort.  If I had to try too hard to make them work they’d be among the first to go when I was busy or tired or just feeling a bit lazy.

What works well for you?

Jody Pirrello is a web technologist specializing in project management methodologies, business analysis, and web analytics. She’s the VP of Technology at NetPlus Marketing in suburban Philadelphia and one half of the SocialCloudNow http://socialcloudnow.com/team.  Follow her on Twitter @jpirrello.