Photo Credit: Anton Diaz
I’m still shocked Big Ten Football captured the first-ever national championship game playoff. I hope these share-worthy links ease the sting for other SEC fans. Stay warm Social Media ReInvention Community Members and enjoy your Sunday Brunch! (more…)
There are no guarantees of employment for new college graduates or current students in today's brutal economy. A college diploma is now a minimum requirement. This November 2011 New York Times direct quote describes the current situation:
"A bachelor's degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence or capability."
A Resume and Diploma are NOT Enough. Recent graduates (and current undergraduates) need more to catch a company recruiter's attention. LinkedIn Grad Guide Video #2: Building Your Professional Brand revolves around this concept. Here's a key fact about how company recruiters now evaluate future employees (particularly college graduates and current students):
"It's no longer enough to simply have a resume. Students now need a professional online presence." – Holly Paul, former US Recruiting Leader, PriceWaterHouse Coopers (now Chief Human Resources Officer, Vocus).
Do You have a Professional Online Presence? Is Your Professional Online Presence Differentiating? If you said no to either of these questions, I hope you'll continue reading a little longer. Developing a professional brand / presence requires work, time, patience, and discipline. If you make the commitment, this investment increases the probability a company recruiter (or your first boss) will:
Seeking a Job in Marketing, Public Relations, or Communications? Majoring in these Fields)? If you nodded "yes," the authors / books described in this two-part post are MUST READ content. These gurus are driving the future landscape of digital marketing, public relations, and communications.
Note: I am not an Amazon Affiliate Program Member. I tremendously respect the following authors because of their invaluable guidance in developing a professional online presence.
Read. Read. Read. The following suggested authors / books are not "cookie cutter" or "10 easy steps on how-to land your first job out of college / summer internship in a lousy economy" resources.
These authors share creative ideas to show a potential employer "you're more than a resume and the grades on a college transcript". Their teachings provide suggestions in maximizing the Internet's global reach and leveraging search engines to your advantage.
Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha wrote The Start-Up of You with the following principles in mind:
1. You were born an entrepreneur.
2. Succeding professionally in today's economy means people of all ages need to adopt the same strategies of successful entrepreneurs.
Why? Successful entrepreneurs excel at:
So what does entrepreneurship have to do with building a professional presence (and ultimately in landing that first job out of college)? Here are some direct quotes referencing Ronald Brownstein's NationalJournal.com article, "Children of the Great Recession:"
"For the last sixty or so years, the job market for educated workers worked like an escalator. So long as you played nice and well, you moved steadily up the escalator, and each step brought with it more power, income, and job security."
"But now the escalator is jammed at every level. Many young people even the most highly educated, are stuck at the bottom, underemployed, or jobless."
The Start-Up of YOU's principles describe the entrepreneurial strategies and career tactics traditional liberal arts undergraduate classes overlook. Understanding and applying these entrepreneurial strategies and career tactics can guide you in the current job market.
I published a series on The Start-Up of YOU when the book rolled out last year. The second post, Start-Up of YOU Book Review, Part 2: Five Game Changers in Career Competitive Advantage highlights several key takeaways.
Here are a few more helpful links to The Start-Up of YOU Resources Page to get started:
If you have difficulty with these links, please email me at tony[dot]faustino[at]gmail[dot]com, and I'll send you the PDFs.
The Start-Up of YOU Resources Page also contains this SlideShare presentation: Start-Up of YOU Visual Summary:
Dan Schawbel wrote Me 2.0 and Promote Yourself. The New York Post selected Me 2.0 as 2009's Number 1 career book. Promote Yourself (his latest book) is a current New York Times bestseller. Dan's also the Managing Partner of Millenial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He is the personal branding authority for millenials.
Great Insights Relevant to All Professional Ages. In my opinion, Dan's professional branding teachings apply to ALL professionals and job seekers. I studied the 2009 first edition in my early-forties.
Why Me 2.0 Matters
Me 2.0 provides easy-to-understand suggestions for creating a professional brand online by:
Dan published this free PDF presentation, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success, to support the book's launch. It's a great primer for seriously publishing a personal blog and creating a professional brand.
Stay tuned for a future review of Promote Yourself (it's on my reading to-do list). Here's Dan's blog post, Promote Yourself Excerpt – Chapter 10: Start Your Own Business While on the Job, if you'd like to learn more.
I am a HUGE Mitch Joel Fan. Mitch is President of Twist Image – one of the largest independent Digital Marketing Agencies in North America. When Google educates the top global brands about digital marketing, they call Mitch to speak at the Googleplex.
Chapter 7: You Are Media and Chapter 10: From Mass Media to "Me" Media. These Six Pixels of Separation chapters, along with Tom Peters' classic Fast Company article, The Brand Called YOU, explain best why cultivating a professional online presence should be a career priority.
Key content generously shared in these chapters include:
A Bonafide Visionary. Here's a direct quote from Mitch Joel in Six Pixels of Separation "predicting" why a professional online presence matters more than ever for new college graduates (this was in 2009).
Mitch framed his insight within the context of the following quote cited in Six Pixels of Separation from Michael S. Malone's May 2008 Wall Street Journal article, "The Next American Frontier:"
"The most compelling statistic of all? Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. Today, 80% of the colleges and universities in the U.S. now offer courses on entrepreneurship; 60% of Gen Y business owners consider themselves to be serial entrepreneurs, according to Inc. magazine. Tellingly, 18 to 24-year-olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35 to 44-year-olds. And 70% of today's high schoolers intend to start their own company, according to a Gallup poll."
(from Mitch a few paragraphs later):
"Here's what he's really saying (e.g., Mr. Malone): Without noticing it, we have once again discovered, and then raced off to settle, a new frontier. Not land, not innovation, but ourselves and a growing control over our own lives and careers.
Mitch Joel's Latest Book is Ctrl Alt Delete. My biggest personal mistakes/regrets in understanding and building a professional online presence are:
Mitch recently published Ctrl Alt Delete. I'm studying it now (and I love it). The lifelong career advice is invaluable. To preview Ctrl Alt Delete, please watch this thoughtful conversation between Jonathan Fields and the humble maestro:
This concludes post three on helping recent college graduates and current undergraduates build a professonal online presence. I hope you'll return for post four (e.g., Part 2) sharing six (6) more authors and their respective books. Post 4 should be published in two weeks.
Your Turn: Have you read any of these books? If so, how useful do you think they are to recent college graduates and current undergraduates. Are there other books you think would be helpful? Please let me know in the comments.
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Note: This is post three in a series sharing resources to help new college graduates and current students land full-time jobs or internships. If interested, here are links to other posts in this series:
Note: This is the third post in a series reviewing The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
Post #3 highlights five (5) very smart people I've met throught The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Discussion Group.
I'm concluding this series with my perspectives on the common criticisms of the book:
* The book is a 270+ page LinkedIn advertisement
* Too many success stories about Silicon Valley technology entrepreneurs (versus examples from other professions)
* Really! Another Sheryl Sandberg Success Story
The Start-Up of You Reveals How To Use LinkedIn for Personal Competitive Advantage
A Far Different Value Proposition Than an Advertisement. Wade Roush published this review in Xconomy, LinkedIn: The Missing Manual Worth Reading. He describes The Start-Up of You as:
"a guide to the mindset you need to adopt if you want to make successful use of LinkedIn."
That's a Fair Statement. The Start-Up of You bridges the gap for customizing and optimizing your LinkedIn usage beyond copying/pasting your resume into the profile template.
A 100% complete LinkedIn Profile is the bare bones minimum for competing in today's job market.
On The Start-Up of You website, Hoffman and Casnocha provide free content on advanced tips for using LinkedIn. Here are a few of these helpful suggestions:
LinkedIn Novices Versus Power Users. Deep Nishar, LinkedIn's Senior Vice President of Product, described the difference between LinkedIn's Novice Users and Power Users in a December 2011 Fast Company article:
"The novice users of LinkedIn use it to find a job. The power users of LinkedIn use it to manage their careers."
Here are a few ways to differentiate your LinkedIn profile or manage your career using key features:
12 Examples of Non-Technology, Non-Silicon Valley Success Stories From The Start-Up of You
Each of these examples provides several pages or a few sentences to explain a key principle. Either way, they demonstrate how the book's principles extend beyond Silicon Valley and the technology industry.
There's No Such Thing As Too Much Sheryl Sandberg
I'm The Father of Two Daughters. And, I think Sheryl Sandberg's a tremendous role model for young women. She's an influential Silicon Valley power player and important business leader. I love her personal mission to convince more women to pursue technology careers, target the C-Suite, and adopt the attitude to:
What Father Wouldn't Want His Daughter(s) To Professionally Succeed? I admire how Sandberg "picked herself" to bring more attention to advancing women in business leadership. That takes guts because she's received criticism for taking on this role (see articles below).
But, she sticks with it. And, I crave to see more. Here's more inspiration about the brains, resourcefulness, and chutzpah of Sheryl Sandberg:
* (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg
Closing Thoughts
This concludes my blog post series on why The Start-Up of You is an important book in career management and leadership.
Buy This Book. Don't miss out on a great personal and professional opportunity.
The global economy will continue to challenge and influence our respective professional prospects and choices for several years.
And, the timely advice to invest in yourself, invest in your network, and invest in society couldn't come at a better time.
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can unsubscribe any time you like.
Please share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Note: This is the second post in a series reviewing The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
This post focuses on the smart people and the thoughtful comments they share in the thriving Start-Up of You LinkedIn Discussion Group / Community. As of the publication of this post, the community boasts 1,200+ members.
Global members in this community come from all walks of life. Here are some charts summarizing the group's seniority and the different business functions represented (as of April 5, 2012):
Business Function Demographics Chart (as of 6 AM Central Time, April 5th)
Seniority Demographics Chart (as of 6 AM Central Time, April 5th)
What Differentiates The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Community?
* People Genuinely Do and Want to Help Each Other. This group epitomizes how "giving is better than receiving."
* No Blog Pimping. This unwritten code is enforced by the group and its managers. How? Those who've tried posting links to their posts without contributing something to the group INSTANTLY LOSE CREDIBILITY. Their submitted discussion posts are ignored and buried in the stream.
Start-Up of You Community Members are smart and discerning. They know and identify self-serving BS quickly.
* The Group Practices the IWe (I to the We) Principle (direct quotes from the book):
"The nuanced version of the story of success is that both the individual and team matter. "I" vs. "We" is a false choice. It's both. Your career success depends on both your individual capabilities and your network's ability to magnify them."
"Think of it as IWe. An individual's power is raised exponentially with the help of a team (a network). But just as zero to the one hundredth power is still zero, there's no team without the individual."
"This book is titled The Start-Up of You. Really, the "you" is at once singular and plural."
People To Follow and Learn From. I follow a number of people in this great community. I wish I could highlight them all (but there's only so much time to write).
Here are X people I closely follow within The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Community because they're smart, interesting, helpful, and generous. Every time one of these members submits a comment or discussion topic, I pay closer attention and focus a little harder.
Why? Because I know an opportunity to learn something new and insightful is approaching. And, I don't want to miss it.
Ben is the co-author of The Start-Up of You with Reid Hoffman. He's a successful entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, and world-traveler. He's also the owner of The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Discussion Group.
I look forward to his group contributions because of his intelligence and thoughtfulness. This is another way of saying whenever I read one of his comments, I'm always left thinking: "Wow, I wish I would have said that …"
Here's one of my favorite Casnocha comments from Manish Shah's discussion thread titled: How do people prefer to develop skills that can help diversify their experience at work?
"To broaden the conversation a bit to how people can learn new skills generally: one model I'm intrigued by is the "coach" model. That is, hiring a coach to work with you intensely to develop a specific skill, like programming or public speaking. Atul Gawande wrote an interesting piece about this topic a few months ago in the New Yorker:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande
As he points out, elite athletes and singers have coaches. Tiger Woods is one of the best golfers in the world, yet he still has a swing coach.
Why don't more top-flight professionals have coaches to work with them on specific parts of their skill portfolio? Why don't all of us? How does coaching compare to other models of learning? What's the value of a hired coach vs. informal coaching done through your network? Ruminations…"
Here's a great video of Ben being interviewed about The Start-Up of You. During the interview, he shares personal lessons learned as a lifelong entrepreneur:
Ben publishes a great blog about books, entrepreneurship, current affairs, and intellectual life. Also, here's Ben Casnocha's Twitter Profile.
Ian is a Start-Up of You marketing team member. He recently hosted the live Q&A webcast with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. And, he did a phenomenal job in managing some of the technical problems that arose during the webcast.
In reading and following Ian's discussion group comments, I always think: "This guy is wise beyond his years." He's smart, a talented writer, and always makes me think.
Here's a great example from Brett Bolkowy's discussion thread "Design Chief Jony Ive on Apple's Design Process: Rapid Iteration and Prototyping Are Key." This quote demonstrates Ian's proactive thinking and iterative approach towards career management and personal development:
"One thought: if you have difficulty taking small steps toward a new opportunity, it's worth acknowledging this honestly rather than continuing to struggle toward a goal. I spent almost a year wanting to teach myself programming, struggling to make progress, until I discovered another subject that was easy for me to take small steps toward mastering — finance and trading. It's not to say that I couldn't have changed my approach to make learning programming more enjoyable, but my point is small steps aren't always easy but, perhaps, they should be."
Ian publishes a personal blog titled Essays & Notes (and it TOTALLY ROCKS). Read these two posts and you'll gain a sense of his thoughtfulness and genuineness: (1) Lust To Love and (2) Singles Awareness Day. Here's Ian Bennett Alas's Twitter Profile.
And, check out some of his creative videos. They're pretty cool!
LA Critical Mass (April 29, 2011) from Ian Bennett Alas on Vimeo.
Jessie is a Product Marketing Manager at Get Satisfaction. She's also cited in The Acknowledgements Section of The Start-Up of You by Ben Casnocha. She is a bright individual as evidenced by this thoughtful response to Alexandros Mathopoulous in his discussion thread: What advice would you offer a high schooler, who is very interested in entrepreneurship, in choosing a college or not going to college?
"Let me start by saying that I am probably not the best person to be answering this question because I never second-guessed my choice to go to college nor do I have ambitions to start a business.What I do know is that it's important to get many different perspectives on a question like this and always keep in mind who is giving the advice. I, for example, would probably say that college is a good choice, but I always liked school and didn't have to take on debt to attend a private college. My parents would definitely recommend it, because they are old school and don't realize that these days many of the most sought after skills (eg: programming) aren't even taught in college. Someone who didn't go to college might advise you not to go without even considering how he or she is different from you.
Out of all of this, you'll need to abstract the "objective" benefits and drawbacks of going to college.
Objectively, or at least as objectively as I can, I would say that there is a huge networking benefit to go to college – it's a chance to meet a lot of smart people. But, at the same time, you could go to dozens of conferences a year for less than tuition. Still, it's a built-in network and 4 years provides plenty of time to build lasting relationships.
Those are my somewhat jumbled thoughts. Hope it's helpful!"
She's also inspired me in how to creatively use a personal website showcasing a personal and professional story. Jessie's website is a great example of personal branding to exhibit one's strengths, creativity, and technical prowess. The story she tells is the playbook / model I will follow when I build my personal website.
You can also check out Jessie's tweets on her Twitter Profile.
Brett is also a Start-Up of You Marketing Team Member. Reid Hoffman cites Brett in The Acknowledgments Section of The Start-Up of You for his contributions in research, content refinement, and organizational support.
Here's a great example of this guy's smarts from Pamela J. Stubbart's discussion thread: "The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption."
"To Ian's first point from the Quora thread, I might recommend a publication that comes out weekly as opposed to daily – like The Economist – which offers analysis as well as the history of what's happened in the previous week.Another interesting idea I read about in Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From is "deep dive reading vacations," which is something that Bill Gates plans once a year – he goes off the grid and surrounds himself with all the information he can on one topic."
Here's Brett Bolkowy's Twitter Profile. He's also an amateur photographer. Check out these cool photos from Brett Bolkowy's personal website:
When I discovered The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Discussion Group, I published this discussion thread titled: 4 Reasons Why Soft Assets Like a Personal Blog / Public Portfolio Should Be Part of Your Personal and Portable Start-Up of You Toolkit.
Matt was the first person to contribute to this discussion. His responses demonstrated his smarts, creativity, and technology savvy. If you read his many contributions to other discussion threads, I think you'd conclude (like I do) he's a great guy. He's the type of genuinely good person you'd enjoy talking with over a couple of beers.
He runs his own business, HipSoft Logic Ltd., a website development firm. Matt also publishes a personal blog: And Then Some — Thoughts That Are Important to Me. If you'd like to follow him on Twitter, here's Matt Hippely's Twitter Profile.
Here are some of Matt's thoughts in the aforementioned LinkedIn discussion thread:
"I am building out a series of marketing pieces for myself. I am thinking of it like this: If I had my own marketing department, I would feed them the data and they would make this collateral for me.I would describe the piece I am working on right now as a high level mailer that gets its own webpage instead of snail mail. Think of it as one of those glossy, multipage advertisements for a new credit card but online with a bit of interactivity.
@Travis – I have been looking at it from the other direction. Up until now my blog has been a place for posting updates and media for my daughters grand parental units. Except for the occasional coding tip or emacs command that I want to remember I haven't put much professional thought out there for public. I have put things there but they are not polished enough that I want to put those, professionally related thoughts out there. If I polish them up and put them out there I can tweak the tags or categories so that it can serve both my personal and professional interests. But it takes time to polish and organize thoughts that bridge the personal and professional divide so I haven't done it.I have a feeling that the value in soft assets like a blog are a reflection of the amount invested into it. Much like I first noticed that Apple was different – even in the way the packaged the first computer I bought from them (A still running PPC G5 :-), I notice personal site that the author has either put a lot of time into personalizing. I wonder if it is the process of personalizing your site/content/message that is equivalent to submitting a cover letter printed on red paber except that the red cover letter only gets seen by a few people at best and your digital footprint is always there."
Closing Thoughts
There are a number great folks who contribute great content to The Start-Up of You LinkedIn Community. I wish I had more time to mention them.
Join The Community. The people in this LinkedIn Group share great content, advice, and opinions. Their insightful discussions force me to think differently and open my mind to different solutions and possibilities.
Isn't that what learning is all about?
The people in this community add tremendous value by sharing how they're applying and learning from the book's lessons.
Please Join Us.
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Link to Photo Credits via Brett Bolkowy
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can unsubscribe any time you like.
Please share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Note: This is the second post in a series reviewing The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
I'm a HUGE FAN of the career management concepts shared in this book. Its teachings and lessons will influence and impact my professional and career management choices forever.
I read / studied The Start-Up of You from cover-to-cover. If I could do it again, I would prioritize reading these five (5) chapters and their related concepts first (in the following suggested order):
* Chapter 6: Take Intelligent Risks — The Volatility Paradox: Small Fires Prevent the Big Burn
* Chapter 7: Who You Know is What You Know — Synthesize Information Into Actionable Intelligence
* Chapter 1: All Humans Are Entrepreneurs — The Start-Up of You Mindset: Permanent Beta
* Chapter 5: Pursue Breakout Opportunities — Court Serendipity and Good Randomness
* Chapter 3: Plan To Adapt — Maintain an Identity Separate from Specific Employers
Reid and Ben provide great insights throughout the book. Here's a beautiful visual from Ogilvy Notes of all of the valuable lessons from The Start-Up of You:
You Might Want To Grab Some Coffee. The following chapters and their verbatim quotes are the concepts I found most inspiring. Sometimes, I provide only the quotes because the words alone inspired me. In other sections, I include my point-of-view.
Buy and Read This Book. Most of all, I hope sharing these five (5) game changer concepts from the book will motivate you to buy and read it.
If you're still here, I suggest grabbing that cup of coffee (or maybe two).
1. Chapter 6: Take Intelligent Risks
Read This Chapter First. Beginning with Chapter 6 is the only thing I would have done differently. I suggest starting with the section of the book titled, The Volatility Paradox: Small Fires Prevent the Big Burn.
These passages represent my "eureka moment."
"Without frequent, contained risk taking, you are setting yourself up for a major dislocation at some point in the future. Inoculating yourself to big risks is like inoculating yourself to big risks is like inoculating yourself against the flu virus. By injecting a small bit of flu into your body in the form of a vaccination, you make a big flu outbreak survivable. By introducing regular volatility into your career, you make surprise survivable. You gain the ability to absorb shocks gracefully."
"Opportunity and risk are two sides of the same coin, after all: join and create groups, be in motion, take on side projects, hustle. In a phrase, say 'yes' more."
"Pretending you can avoid risk causes you to miss opportunities that can change your life. It also lulls you into a dangerously fragile life pattern, leaving you exposed to a huge blow-up in the future."
"When you're resilient, you can play for big opportunities with less worry about the possible consequences of unanticipated hiccups. For the start-up of you, the only long-term answer to risk is resilience."
"Remember: If you don't find risk, risk will find you."
Companies and Individuals Who Don't Take Intelligent Risks Marginalize Themselves Over Time. Here's a video of Reid discussing the importance of intelligent risk taking:
Previously, I Said "No" More. I said no to additional career-related opportunities because of the additional time commitments. I'm not talking about the "traditional" internal company, career-related opportunities (i.e., accepting high profile internal projects to increase exposure to senior management, etc.).
I'm referring to externally focused opportunities beyond the significant time already devoted to this personal blog. These opportunities will consume additional time next to an already consuming and stressful full-time job and family duties.
Focus On The Upside. But, Chapter 6 convinced me to start focusing on the upside. These are investments in my "soft assets" (i.e., cultivating new contacts, learning new skills, expanding the reach of my network intelligence, acquiring actionable knowledge). Dwelling on the potential downside is counter-productive (e.g., the time demands).
A Counter-Intuitive Approach. For someone in their mid-forties balancing demands of a young family and a full-time job involving travel, "taking on more" seems counter-intuitive. But, The Start-Up of You makes the case for constant investment in activities building our "soft assets."
Investing in yourself requires significant time and commitment. Plus, it's especially important to make those investments while gainfully employed.
Safe is Risky. Seth Godin says it best and simply from his classic book, Purple Cow:
(page 30) "My goal in Purple Cow is to make it clear that it's safer to be risky–to fortify your desire to do truly amazing things."
(page 64) "Safe is risky."
2. Chapter 7: Who You Know Is What You Know
Synthesize Information Into Actionable Intelligence. It's not enough to have great connections with a diverse set of skills, industries, and professions. Your network must inform your decision making with excellent data. But, "what do I do next with that data" is a determining factor in driving your success:
Here are my favorite book passages describing the importance of synthesizing information or "connecting the dots:"
"So far we've talked about the first step — pulling information from multiple people from multiple people in your network. Once you have gathered information, the next step is to analze the validity, helpfulness, and relevance of what each person has said. Remember, that everyone has biases — even your parents or best friend. It's not that they are trying to manipulate you. It's just the nature of being a human with personal experiences and self-interests. Bias can be obvious or nonobvious."
"As you pull information and advice from various sources, think about how the person's personal goals, ambitions, and experience might have colored their position. Bias is not reason to dismiss information or advice altogether; just account for it in your analysis."
"Synthesis is the important final step. If you don't step back and take in the big picture of all you've learned, it will feel like you're worming your way through a cocktail party hearing bits and pieces of several different conversations but not able to make out anything of substance."
"Synthesizing what you learn involves reconciling contradictory advice and information (which is inevitable if you're pulling multiple streams from diverse people), ignoring information you believe is completely off base, and weighing each person's information differently. This is a complex cognitive process."
"For now, we'll just say that when it comes to intelligence, good synthesis is what makes the whole worth more than the sum of the parts."
"Network intelligence is the advanced game: if you do it well, it'll give you a competitive edge."
"IWe means your network can help you decide on a direction and then help you move quickly, but only YOU can drive the process forward."
Connect the Dots, Commit to a Personal Strategy, and Have the Courage to Ship: Connect. Commit. Ship. Any action answers "what do I do next." That's why I altered the final quote to emphasize YOU.
As Seth Godin would say, Poke the Box:
3. Chapter 1: All Humans Are Entrepreneurs
The Start-Up of You Mind-set: Permanent Beta. Permanent beta is a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth. This concept is analogous to how technology companies keep iterating and testing software after the official launch so the software can be continuously improved.
Our careers are much the same way:
"For entrepreneurs, finished is an F-word. They know that great companies are always evolving."
"Finished ought to be an F-word for all of us. We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers.
"Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, that there's new development to do on yourself, that you will need to adapt and evolve."
"But, it's still a mind-set brimming with optimism because it celebrates the fact that you have the power to improve yourself and, as important, improve the world around you."
Reid Describes Permanent Beta and Learning To Improve Every Month. In the first video, he explains the concept of permanent beta. In the second video, he talks about when he interviews people. During those interviews, he wants to understand how people grow their capabilities on a monthly basis.
4. Chapter 5: Pursue Breakout Opportunities
Court Serendipity and Good Randomness. What I enjoy most about this concept is "proactively making our own luck." And, the best way to achieve serendipity (e.g., accidental good fortune) is to be doing something. You have to be in motion.
"Serendipity involves being alert to potential opportunity and acting on it."
"You won't encounter accidental good fortune–you won't stumble upon opportunities that rocket career forward–if you're lying in bed. When you do something, you stir the pot and introduce the possibility that random ideas, people, and places will collide and form new combinations and opportunities."
"By being in motion, you are spinning a web as wide and tall as possible in order to catch any interesting opportunities that come your way."
"As entrepreneur Bo Peabody says, "The best way to ensure that lucky things happen is to make sure a lot of things happen." Make things happen, and in the long run, you'll design your own serendipity, and make your own opportunities."
You Have to Be Playing in the Game. You can't make your own luck or court serendipity and good randomness while sitting on the couch watching tv. Here's a short video with Reid talking about how sitting on the sidelines means missing out on breakout opportunities:
5. Chapter 3: Plan to Adapt
Maintain an Identity Separate from Specific Employers. This book section focuses on personal branding. Here are some important direct quotes:
"Establish an identity independent of your employer, city, and industry. For example, make the headline of your LinkedIn profile not a specific job title (e.g., "VP of Marketing at Company X") but personal-brand or asset-focused (e.g., "Entrepreneur. Product Strategist. Investor.")"
"Start a personal blog and begin developing a public reputation and public portfolio of work that's not tied to your employer. This way you'll have a professional identity that you can carry with you as you shift jobs."
"You own yourself. It's the start-up of you."
Your Personal Blog = Your Personal Competitive Advantage. A personal blog and other self-published content give you a differentiating competitive advantage by:
1. Showing how you think
2. Demonstrating your individual creativity
3. Making it easy for a potential employer / great connection to find you (e.g., SEO benefits)
4. Giving you practice in an important and portable business skill set — writing
5. Proving you're technology and Internet savvy
6. Informing people first-hand how you're driven to learn new skills
Seth Godin and Tom Peters Says A Personal Blog Matters. In this video, they both discuss how a personal blog is the best personal marketing tool.
And, Remember The Brand of You is Just One Part of the Start-Up of You. Here's Reid Hoffman's take on personal branding. Pay close attention to his point that a brand must be backed by substance if you want it to be relevant.
Closing Thoughts
What Were Your Favorite Concepts From The Start-Up of You? Have you read this important book? Take time to invest in yourself by reading it.
Reading The Start-Up of You will make a significant difference in your life. It's already changed mine.
And, it will have a lasting personal impact and influence for many future years.
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can unsubscribe any time you like.
Please share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
I finished reading The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha last weekend.
It's a special book that will have a lasting influence on how I manage and approach my professional career AND personal choices FOREVER.
You Were Born an Entrepreneur. This is the book's stated mantra and working hypothesis. But, the book seeks to fulfill a higher mission (more on that later).
I think I've been relatively savvy in managing my professional career. But, the book identified multple gaps in my approach I must address NOW.
The book does reinforce and validates the activities driving my personal reinvention process (which started around three years ago):
1. Immersing myself in all things relevant to digital and social media
2. Participating actively and building relationships via digital and social technologies
3. Starting, writing, and sticking with this personal blog
4. Re-discovering a love for reading and building knowledge
5. Remembering how "giving is better than receiving"
And, the book points out the importance of constantly iterating and improving ourselves by being in "permanent beta" (e.g., adopting a continuous innovation attitude to adapt to a dynamicly changing workplace).
An Inspiring Message of Opportunity in Today's Ambiguous and Uncertain Economy
Invest In Yourself, Invest in Your Network, and Invest in Society. There are many important Start-Up of You concepts which I'll share in this post. In my next post, I will explore in greater detail specific ideas from the book.
This book is special because it delivers more than pragmatic career management advice.
"What that something special is" can be found in these inspiring direct quotes from the book's Conclusion:
"For Ben and me, this book is one our gifts back to society. We think the tools in this book can improve both your life and society. Sometimes giving back can be simply spreading ideas that matter."
"Invest in yourself, invest in your network, and invest in society. When you invest in all three, you have the best shot at reaching your highest professional potential. As important, you also have the best shot at changing the world."
Critics Say Those Statements are Presumptuous, Arrogant, and Idealistic
A Quick Note To Critics of The Start-Up of You. The book's critics believe that. In addition, they dismiss this book as nothing more than "mass-targeted content supplying fluff we've all heard before." Or, "it's nothing more than a 250+ page LinkedIn advertisement."
Those critics are flat-out wrong.
The book's mission, principles, and message to "invest in all three" are timely and important.
Timing Is Everything. Or paraphrasing Reid and Ben: "there's a way to court serendipity and good randomness." When I read the following articles from reputable and credible sources, it strengthens my resolve that The Start-Up of You's principles and values matter:
A Four-Post Blog Series on The Start-Up of You Book and The LinkedIn Start-Up of You Community
This book's mission, pragmatic career management content, and thriving LinkedIn community are why I've decided to publish this review as a multiple-post series. This book and its growing movement are that important.
Here are the working themes:
Want To Start Learning About The Book's Principles and Begin Participating in The Community NOW?
The Book's Executive Summary. This link allows you to download a free Executive Summary PDF of The Start-Up of You. If you have difficulty receiving it, please notify me in the comments. I'll email you the PDF.
Also, here are some cool visual book notes by Sacha Chua:
The LinkedIn Start-Up of You LinkedIn Community. This is a SPECIAL LinkedIn Group. What differentiates it?
* People Genuinely Do and Want to Help Each Other. This group epitomizes how "giving is better than receiving."
* No Blog Pimping. This unwritten code is enforced by the group and its managers. How? Those who've tried posting links to their posts without giving something to the group INSTANTLY LOSE CREDIBLITY. Their submitted discussion posts are ignored and buried in the stream.
Start-Up of You Community Members are smart and discerning. They know and identify self-serving BS quickly.
* The Group Practices the IWe (I to the We) Principle (direct quotes):
"The nuanced version of the story of success is that both the individual and team matter. "I" vs. "We" is a false choice. It's both. Your career success depends on both your individual capabilities and your network's ability to magnify them."
"Think of it as IWe. An individual's power is raised exponentially with the help of a team (a network). But just as zero to the one hundredth power is still zero, there's no team without the individual."
"This book is titled The Start-Up of You. Really, the "you" is at once singular and plural."
Closing Thoughts
Thank you for reading this far! I hope you'll stick with me for a little longer …
Have You Read The Start-Up of You? What did you think of it? How will this book influence your career management approach? Please let me know with your comments.
I'd love to hear from you.
Tony Faustino writes about how the Internet is reinventing marketing strategy for companies and individuals. He tweets at @tonyfaustino.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can unsubscribe any time you like.
Please share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
The Premise / Goal / Timing of This Weekly Feature
Premise. If you like the content in this blog, you may like the type of content I regularly read and study on the Web.
Goal. On a weekly basis, I'm going to publish links to three (3) articles I find interesting. I'll include a brief summary with some bullet points explaining why I think the content is worth consuming.
Timing. I'll publish this content every Wednesday / Thursday.
The Three Articles I Evernoted
1. The Start-Up of You Website: This is the home base for the new book by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha: The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. These two (2) Start-Up of You blog posts are reasons why The Start-Up of You and The Lean Start-Up by Eric Ries are the most important books I'm reading / studying in 2012.
2. The Three Laws of Future Employment by Daniel Jelski: This is a THOUGHT-PROVOKING article commenting on individual competitiveness in today's dynamic employment market. Jelski's three (3) laws and subsequent conclusions are important:
3. (Forbes) 5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will Replace Your Resume in 10 Years by Dan Schawbel: When I decided to publish my personal blog, I studied Dan's personal branding insights from his book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future.
I recently wrote a post about the challenges in standing out in today's fiercely competitive job market with only a resume to represent one's career. Dan, however, has been sharing personal branding insights for years.
Here are the Dan's five (5) reasons from the Forbes article:
Your Feedback Please!
I'd like to experiment with this type of post for the next two to three months. Let me know what you think (especially if this idea sucks):
Today, Reid Hoffman, the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of LinkedIn, officially released his new book, The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career.
I've been impatiently waiting for this book for months. I finally downloaded the Kindle version and started reading it this evening.
I'm not sure why Hoffman doesn't receive the attention and adulation of his Silicon Valley counterparts such as the late Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin.
But, what I respect most is his guiding, personal and professional philosophy to help others succeed. So many people choose to focus the power of social technologies on creating noise and interruption that centers on "look at me."
Meahwhile, Hoffman focuses on "how can I help you." This guiding philosophy is well-articulated in the following articles:
The following videos are my three (3) favorites plus two bonuses. These interviews showcase the genius, vision, and humility of Reid Hoffman. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do:
(Bonus) Time Video: LinkedIn Co-Founder On "The Start-Up of You"
(Bonus) CBS This Morning Video: LinkedIn Co-Founder, Social Web Still Very Young
Charlie Rose: A Conversation With Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn (March 2009)
YouTube: Reid Hoffman Entrepreneurs Will Create The Future
Endeavor Entrpreneur Summit at Stanford University (July 2011)
YouTube: TEDxSiliconValley — Reid Hoffman (December 2009)
Link to Photo Credit by Joi Ito via flickr
