Category Archives: Competitive Advantage

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Making It Personal: Automated Emails, Blog Post Content, and Amazon HQ2 Rejection

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broken heart game over

Welcome Back to Sunday Links with Social Media ReInvention

I want to thank the new subscribers who decided to receive future posts from Social Media ReInvention. You know who you are, and I’m grateful for your vote of confidence.

Your conscious decision to invest your Sunday time and attention here humbles and inspires me. Thank YOU!

Today’s Sunday Links summaries revolve around a specific storyline — Personalization.

  • Summary 1 — Email Marketing: 1. If You’re Automating Your Emails, Please Personalize Them
  • Summary 2 — Inbound Marketing: 2. Personalized Blog Posts are the New Unique
  • Summary 3 — Strategy: 3. Amazon HQ2 Selection Is Personal for the Cities Who Lost

Please join me. Right now.

If you don’t, I will take it personally …

… let’s get to work.

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Don’t Invite Reid Hoffman To Connect With LinkedIn’s Mobile App

Latest LinkedIn Mobile App Release Doesn't Allow For Customized Invitations. Yet.

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Reid Hoffman LinkedIn App Profile Pic

Photo Credit: Tony Faustino

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE (01/08/16): LinkedIn’s mobile app made personalized invitations available in mid-December 2016.

LinkedIn’s mobile app is much improved.  But, we can’t personalize LinkedIn Invitations in the latest release. Yet.

Didn’t my last post describe step-by-step instructions on personalizing our LinkedIn Connection Requests with LinkedIn’s Mobile App? Yes.

Those instructions are no longer valid. Here’s what I learned from a failed experiment.

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Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Gun For Twitter’s and Google’s Hearts and Souls

Latest strategic choice: Personalize competitors' strengths into Facebook's closed ecosystem

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Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Conference Pic

Photo Credit: TechCrunch via flickr

The Wall Street Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman published this great article: Facebook Takes Aim at Search Again. Take time to read Deepa’s article because she delivers important insight on Mark Zuckerberg’s unrelenting competitiveness and strategic genius.

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For Our Children: Humans Are Underrated By Geoff Colvin

My book review of Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will

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Geoff Colvin Humans Are UnderratedHumans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will by Geoff Colvin is an inspiring book about how and what we can individually do to prepare ourselves and our children for the 21st century workplace revolution happening before our eyes.

White Collar Middle Management Ranks Will Continue Disappearing At An Accelerated Rate. Geoff’s detailed, fact-based research is sobering. Continuous advances in software design, machine learning, and artificial intelligence results in the need for fewer, white collar workers.

Remember, white collar workforces? MBA-types, MD-types, JD-types, aka the left-brain masters of the universe?

Cognitive, analytical work is on an accelerated chopping block. Increasing automation and computing power means replacing humans isn’t isolated to blue collar Americans.

A Phenomenon Extending Beyond Decades-Old Outsourcing. Why? Because machines do old-school, cognitive, and analytical work better than humans. That prowess IS EXACTLY what machines do better.

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LinkedIn’s Project Voyager Mobile App Still Has A MAJOR Shortcoming

Inability to customize LinkedIn invitations via revamped mobile app is a mistake

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LinkedIn Mobile Phone App flickr

Photo Credit: koka_sexton via flickr

 

(Updated November 28, 2015) Please refer to my post, LinkedIn Mobile App Hack: 5 Easy Steps To Personal Connection Requests: How to customize LinkedIn Invitations with LinkedIn’s Mobile App.

The Wall Street Journal, Venture Beat, and ZDNet published stories about LinkedIn’s improved and revamped LinkedIn Mobile App. Each article ignores an important, missing feature to improve the LinkedIn mobile user experience.

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Dorie Clark’s Stand Out: THE Career Management Strategy For Thriving 21st Century Careers

Book Review of Stand Out: How To Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It

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Cover of Dorie Clark Stand Out BookSocial Media ReInvention Community Members know I value the teachings of Dorie Clark. Her first book, Reinventing YOU: Define Your Brand. Imagine Your Future., continues its profound influence on my own 21st century career management.

Dorie Clark’s Stand Out Is The Defacto 21st Century Career Management Strategy Manual. Dorie’s latest book, Stand Out: How To Find Your Breakthrough Idea And Build A Following Around It, is exceptional. The practical, accessible, and inspiring paths Dorie describes to becoming an industry thought leader are moving. Her actionable advice, superb writing, and real-world profiles are more relevant than ever in our increasingly robot-, algorithm-, outsource-driven world.

Stand Out IS the powerful and practical, how-to, user’s manual to accompany Seth Godin’s visionary ideas from Tribes and Linchpin. If Tribes and Linchpin are our target destinations, Stand Out maps out accessible paths we can choose to take.  (more…)

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Google’s $400 Billion Trusted Advisor Superstar: Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer

Spoken and Written Words STILL Matter in A Big Data, Algorithm-Driven World

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Wad of Cash in Rubberband

Photo Credit: Refracted Moments(TM)

 

Spoken and written words STILL have a powerful and influential impact in a world increasingly driven by computer code, big data, and mathematical algorithms.

Ruth Porat, Google’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), demonstrated during her June 16th investor relations conference call with Wall Street analysts why communicating with purpose, managing expectations, and showing “I’m actively listening” are still (and will continue to be) the hallmark skills of a successful 21st Century Trusted Advisor.

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Five Reasons Why Self-Publishing Exclusively on LinkedIn Is Bad Business

Invest in Yourself. Protect Your Personal Brand. Publish a Self-Hosted Blog.

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Runner with LinkedIn Logos

Bolota Asmeron, a member of the Linkedin Elite Centipede outs on a temporary Linkedin tattoo before the start of the 2010 Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco.

Photo Credit: A Name Like Shields Can Make You Defensive

 

Important Note: An intelligent and thought-provoking discussion from The Writing on LinkedIn Group inspired this latest post. Matt Sekol initiated the discussion thread, Where’s The Traditional Blog. It’s people like Matt Sekol (and many others) who reaffirm my belief and commitment to why The Writing on LinkedIn Group is one of the most important, intelligent, and enjoyable communities for engaging with and learning from like-minded individuals within LinkedIn.

Last week, I read Alexandra Samuel’s thoughtful post on Harvard Business Review: Have LinkedIn and Medium Killed the Old-Fashioned Blog? Almost three years ago and 1 million Linkedin writers later, LinkedIn launched its self-described definitive publishing platform.

I submitted a comment stating why limiting our self-publishing investments to third-party platforms like LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform and Medium without investing in a self-hosted, personal website or personal blog is a career and business mistake.

Here are more detailed thoughts expanding on my comment in Alexandra’s post.  (more…)

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Sunday Brunch Reads With Social Media ReInvention: 06/28/15 to 07/04/15

Chris Sacca on Fixing Twitter, LinkedIn and Medium Killing Blogging, and THE Trusted Advisor Way to Getting More Client Meetings

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Sunday Brunch Newspaper

Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

 

Please indulge me until Friday, July 31st 12:00 AM Midnight Central Time as I use the introductory paragraph of Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention to promote my nephew’s Kickstarter Campaign for his company, QuadshoX LLC.

I wrote about Johnny Morris’ spinal cord injury and remarkable story in this blog post: America’s Gutsiest CEO and His Kickstarter Project Need Your Support.

Here’s the link to QuadshoX’s inspiring YouTube video to promote its Kickstarter Campaign:

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Part 2: Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course

What Do You Provide?

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Teacher with Students

Photo Credit: usembassykyiv

 

I’m publicly taking and publishing the required exercises in Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course on Udemy. The required exercises force you to ask: “Am I Taking This Path for The Right Reasons.”

I completed the Lectures Six through Thirteen this morning. It’s great stuff taught by The Godfather Himself: Mr. Seth Godin.

Seth asked his course participants to go all-in and publish their assignments. As I perform the course exercises, I will continue publishing the results. It’s Seth teaching his students to write down, commit to, and deliver on our personal manifestos.

Here’s my continuing public contribution and commitment to Seth’s class:
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