Jobs - Servant of Chaos

Does Your Personal Brand Make You Look Like an Idiot?

I can remember advertising for new employees a few years back and being overwhelmed by the number of resumes that would be delivered. We had one job opening and there would be hundreds of applications. It was daunting and depressing. Somewhere in that massive pile of paper was my next team member. I just didn’t know where.

The profiles that stood out from the crowd were few and far between. If I asked for a cover letter I expected a cover letter. If I asked for examples of your work, then I expected to see them. Most of all, I expected that you would do your homework on my company. The vast majority of profiles simply did not cover the fundamentals.

These days it is both easier and harder to find good recruits. Sure LinkedIn makes it easy to discover great people – but for every amazing person out there, there’s a plethora of self-entitled, self-aggrandising idiots that you’d be crazy to employ. Or would you.

Here’s a trick.

Call up your LinkedIn profile.

Read it out aloud.

Now have a friend read it to you like they are standing on a stage, “living the moment”.

If you don’t burst out laughing, you’re on the money.

Reputation Even Over a Resume: Why Personal Branding Matters in 2016

Digital 101, Jobs, Marketing, Personal Branding

Take a moment to look back over your career. Even if you are “new” to the workforce, you’re likely to see a hotchpotch of connected experiences. There will be paid and unpaid work, some volunteering maybe. You’ll have passion projects that took weeks or months of your time – like the time you decided to build your sister’s website to save her money, only to find that after it’s all up and working, she took a new job and was no longer interested in “going freelance”. There may even be whole folders of documents filled with words that one day will become your great business, breakthrough book.

Now, take a look at your LinkedIn profile and ask yourself – what’s the story it tells?

I have been saying this for years – but it’s a fact that grows stronger over time. Your resume is as dead as the tree it is written on.

In 2016, you are what you publish.

[Tweet “In 2016, you are what you publish.”]

LinkedIn as an inbound channel for your personal brand

I used to think of LinkedIn as a place of business, connection and social selling. It was a vastly under-utilised space where a strong profile and a good network would help you stand out from the crowd. But a crowd it certainly is. It is the place where careers and connections collide.

In short, LinkedIn has become the “internet of careers” – the internet that we look at when we are looking to find a job, an employee or a customer.

[Tweet “LinkedIn has become the “internet of careers””]

But these days, LinkedIn has a broader agenda, transforming from a massive database of resumes to a business publishing platform and a social selling engine. Every person with a profile can publish their thoughts, ideas and status updates just like Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Google’s Blogspot (remember that?!). And with the opening up of the LinkedIn Pulse publishing platform, there has literally been an explosion of content – some of it written by individuals and some of it written by ghost bloggers. Some is pure PR spin. Some is heartfelt and personal. There are even birthday notifications (as a side note, I find this mildly disconcerting).

And while this has made it more difficult for the average person to attract and engage potential business collaborators, clients or employers, there is still a great opportunity to use LinkedIn as an inbound channel for your personal brand. What does this look like?

Share the message, own the destination: Ever noticed how everyone’s profile on LinkedIn looks the same? Makes it hard to stand out, right? Like all good strategy, I suggest you share the message – post your insights, presentations, speeches and updates on LinkedIn by all means, but own the destination – have a website or a portfolio that keeps track of all you do. Use that destination to more fully contextualise your work, purpose and outcomes. I use gavinheaton.com as a catch-all for my activities and ServantOfChaos.com as a showcase. DisruptorsHandbook.com focuses marketing-led innovation and practical strategy. And everything that is posted on one of these sites is cross-posted to LinkedIn.
Treat your LinkedIn summary like an elevator pitch: Can you describe your job, best projects and outcomes in 30 seconds? Rather than writing a career summary for your LinkedIn profile, write a summary of how you can help clients, employers and business partners. Make it less about you and more about the value you create.
Write case studies on your best projects: Sure LinkedIn’s publishing platform is a hot mess of content, but every time you publish an article, it reaches into the feeds of your network. That means that people you know, or would like to know, are learning more about you. So give your networks something worth reading – warts and all case studies of the projects you’ve worked on. Include the passion projects, the skunkworks and even elements of your day job that is reasonable to share. Showcase not just the results, but the workings of how you delivered value. Connect the dots, tell the story and bring the dull parts to life with anecdotes, quotes and images.
Treat yourself like your #1 client: Imagine you are writing a brief for a client – except that client is you. Determine your value proposition, key message and proof points. Put your best storytelling foot forward and explain just why you are the best person for the job/project/collaboration. Just remember, it’s hard work. Keep refining your message. Get feedback. Listen honestly and always seek to improve.

For more great ideas on building your personal brand, take a look through this presentation from Leslie Bradshaw. It’s chock full of practical suggestions that can help you shift from being a “thought leader” to a “do leader”. And in a world where you are what you publish, it’s not about the what you say, it’s all about who believes it.

Reputation Over Resume from Leslie Bradshaw

Improve Your Innovation Fitness: Make Yourself Redundant

FutureVisions, Innovation, Jobs, Life

“Waves are not measured in feet and inches, they are measured in increments of fear.”
Buzzy Trent

When we talk about technology – and when we talk about change – we often talk about “waves”. Like surfers talk. Except it’s nowhere near as interesting or compelling. Except when we add a tinge of fear to it.

When I first started working in publishing, I realised that I was already redundant. Or was on the way to being redundant. I led the way in implementing online coding in a world full of typesetters, and I started using desktop publishing when it seemed like blasphemy. The change was coming and I was doing all I could to ride the wave was there before me.

Later, at IBM, I learned about process re-engineering. And “restructuring”. And “outsourcing”. Everywhere I looked, I could see disruption, dislocation and relocation. There were people losing their jobs, careers being swept out from under them. It was a time of tremendous uncertainty.

The thing is, it is no different now than it was then. In many ways, we now live our lives in a constant state of disruption. Gone is the fabled “job for life”. Gone is the bond between employer and employee. And gone is the social contract that saw us all working towards a shared future where a “fair go” was on the table for anyone who stepped up. In its place is uncertainty, change and anxiety.

But disruption is not just about fear. It is also about opportunity.

One of the better lessons from my time at IBM was the need to treat a company like a living organism. Every year or two, there would be a restructure. While this was used as a way to reduce costs or shift them to another country, it was also amazingly invigorating. It challenged us to forge new networks in new parts of the business. It forced new and often unexpected ways of working. And it did so when all we wanted was to stay in our comfort zones.

Now, “restructuring” is not always the most pleasant of experiences. And it is emotionally bruising to find yourself out of work suddenly.

Disrupt yourself first

If you take your job seriously – and almost everyone I have ever met does – then the challenge is to make yourself redundant. The opportunity is to disruption yourself, your career and your industry before it happens from the outside in.

This is partly what we are doing with the Disruptor’s Handbook. Despite the name, it is not a “book”. It is a strategy and innovation firm. Our mission is to bring the innovation practices and methods used by startups to the enterprise. And yes, we have handbooks. We make them freely available on our website so that you can apply these practices to your own business. We also have thought leadership eBooks designed to help you make the case for innovation in your business. We also have a series of techniques and approaches that have not been published but are used in our client work. These are shared with clients so that they learn to do what we do – so they know what we know and grow in confidence and capability. We are effectively disrupting ourselves as we grow.

Challenging yourself

I believe that you must challenge yourself and your industry. Can you do better? Can you reinvent your business?

In challenging yourself this way, it keeps you thinking about the long game. It keeps you focused on the health of your skills and networks, your capabilities and your ability to deliver. And it keeps you focused on your customers and their needs, serving them as they shift and change.

And in a time of uncertainty, making yourself redundant puts you in the driver’s seat of your career. You can choose the timing of your next step and its direction. You can prepare yourself for the changes that are coming. It’s Darwinian. Survival of the fittest.

And this … “innovation fitness” means that you are giving yourself the best next chance possible. Don’t just see the next wave coming, ride it, baby. Ride it.

Should You Work for Free

Jobs, Life, Rant

Almost everyone I know has been asked to work for free at some stage in their career. The question may have come from:

A family member: perhaps your parents need help with their computer. Maybe your brother needs a website or some graphic design help. Perhaps your sister wants to shoot and edit a video for school. We’ve all been there
A not-for-profit: they do great work but need help from someone with your expertise
A startup: cool entrepreneurs bootstrapping their business need a lot of help. Maybe you know something that could help
A business: maybe things are not going so well, but with your help they could get through a recent dry spell. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for paid work down the track

It’s great to help people, but where do you draw the line? Are you in business for your self or are you giving your hard won expertise away for free? This great chart by Jessica Hische provides some handy questions that you should ask yourself before saying “yes” to your next free gig.

I am Joining Constellation Research

Jobs, Life

I am often asked about the story behind this blog and its name – Servant of Chaos. It came about many years ago when I was working with DMR Consulting which was then in the midst of a merger with its parent company, Fujitsu. Those who have lived through a corporate merger will understand the communications challenges that take place – particularly when jobs and friendships are under pressure – but in amongst the chaos, I discovered a way of navigating and connecting with people. It meant relinquishing control. And it meant serving the chaos that was presented.

Throughout my career, I have found that serving the chaos can be challenging but also rewarding. Sometimes, we need embrace the disruption around us – to immerse ourselves in it – so that we can understand it. And sometimes we must cause some chaos in order to create the conditions for change.

From today, I am once again embracing change – and joining the award winning research and advisory firm, Constellation Research. I have long been an admirer of CEO R “Ray” Wang, so I am especially excited to lead Constellation’s latest business-focused research theme, Digital Marketing Transformation – and to have the opportunity of working alongside some of the best analysts in the business.

I will be focusing on the changing role and expectations of CMOs, the fusion of marketing channels and change-driven marketing innovation, and will expand Constellation’s ability to provide digital marketing research and advisory services to its early adopter clients worldwide.

There is no doubt that we are seeing a dramatic shift in the role of marketing. Advertising is under pressure, social is changing our customer relationships and the Consumerisation of IT is changing the way we do our work. There has never been so much change or opportunity – and I'm excited to help chart the course between marketing, technology, customers and vendors.

If you’d like to learn more about Constellation Research and the team I will be working with – check out their profiles, blog posts and research agendas.

If you think we could do business together – we’d love to hear from you. Or, of course, you can always reach me directly via Twitter or LinkedIn.

Hi, I’m Gavin – How Do You Tell Your Personal Story?

Infographics, Innovation, Jobs, Personal Branding

What do you say when you introduce yourself to someone? How do you speak and how do you make eye contact. How firmly do you shake hands?

When you meet face-to-face there thousands of data points and impressions being captured by the people you are meeting. Some are visual. Some are tonal. And yes, some are olfactory.

But what do you do online? How do you tell your story? For example, you can find out about me at:

But, for me, the sum always feels greater than the parts.

To be honest, telling your own story is extremely difficult. In my opinion, it’s why we have agencies and consultants … because they can view your achievements, strengths and qualities with an outsider’s perspective. But tools like LinkedIn and blogs can definitely help. And in this age of infographics, sometimes you just need a visual snapshot – which is why I quite like Visualize.me. It connects to your LinkedIn profile and turns the underlying data into a visual CV. Here is mine – and while it could do with some additional elements – it does seem to get the point across. What do you think?

How Young People Are Faring in 2011

FutureVisions, Good Works, Jobs, Vibewire

Can you remember when you first left home? Do you remember what it felt like – that first week – being solely responsible for all aspects of your life? For me, it was thrilling, but also daunting. It was really only in the silence of that first night that the reality set in – childhood was seriously over, and this new life was entirely in my own hands.

I finished school during an economic recession and walked into a competitive and shrinking job market. I’d done well enough at school yet still found it hard to secure that vital first job. I can remember feeling the pressure, the desperation and exhaustion of doing interview after interview. It took longer than I ever expected to retire from the ranks of the unemployed.

But in 2011, times are better, right? We are more economically stable – secure and growing than we have been in decades. Some would even say, we are “booming”. But the Foundation for Young Australians’ new report How Young People are Faring 2011 suggests that this prosperity and wealth is not “trickling down”. In fact, key findings indicate that young people are more vulnerable than the rest of the population to economic instability:

more than one quarter of all long-term unemployed Australians are now aged 15 to 24
since 2008, the percentage of young Australians without a job for a year or longer has almost doubled
despite Australia’s relative economic buoyancy, teenagers in Australia have higher rates of long-term unemployment than in many other OECD countries.

In my view, this means that we need to redouble our focus on catapulting young people into the workforce. It’s about ensuring they have the support, confidence and capability to transition into the world of work in such a way that it benefits all.

This is precisely why the work that I do with local non-profit Vibewire is important – it’s pointless having opportunity available if you aren’t able to understand it, grasp it and accept it. The team at Vibewire work everyday to build resilience, capacity and skills through a vibrant internship program, this year generating over 20,000 hours of experience for young people. You can support Vibewire, become involved as a mentor or even as an intern. Please do – you won’t regret it.

The full FYA report is available for download here.

What’s Your Job Again?

Jobs, Life

I don’t know about you, but I have always had a hard time explaining to my family what I do for a living. Well, there was a few years where I was working in an accountant’s office – but apart from that, my working life has been a mystery to my parents.

At family BBQs I would find myself “dumbing down” my job role to explain it to uncles and aunts. I would rephrase, repeat and reinterpret every new job role at each and every family gathering. In the end I gave up.

Thankfully, these days I no longer also have to explain what “blogging” is. Even my mother seems to understand blogging.

But marketing, branding and even advertising still seems to confound everyone (despite the best intentions of The Gruen Transfer). And I am sure, next Christmas, I will get the same old question – “what’s your job again?”.

Social Media Jobs Australia

Entrepreneurs, Jobs

There are some great social media thinkers here in Australia. More importantly, there are some great social media “doers”. And over the next few years I expect there to be a real demand for agencies who have real experience in this space and a NEED for professional and corporate marketers to understand how exactly you can integrate social media into your planning while delivering solid returns.

One thing that I do know, is that social media is about “connectors” … those people who are able to join the dots across different types of messaging, communication style and media. They are storytellers for a new age.

But how do you find these folks? Sure, you could look at Twitter. Or you could reach out to a blogger or two … but what if you are new to social media? What if you have a job that you need filled but don’t know where to look?

I may just have the answer for you.

SocialMediaJobs.com.au is a new site that I have setup to “connect the connectors”. The aim is to provide a meeting space for those with roles, with those looking for work. It will continue to evolve and grow … with specialised content on the SociaMediaJobs.com.au blog site designed especially for job seekers.

Both posting a job and applying for a job are FREE.

So what are you waiting for? Post your social media job now!

Sh1thot Designer Job

Jobs

New jobs in social media here in Australia tend to be Laurel’s domain, but this one came across my desk today so I thought I would share it with you all. Now, I don’t know how many of my regular readers are web designers, but it seems like this may be the sort of opportunity that is rarely seen outside of the capital cities.

An agency in Newcasltle looks set to shake up the industry … and by the look of things, they want to do it by being more than just a little provocative.

If you know someone who fits the mould — or likes to break the mould — then let them know. Visit sh1thotdesigner.com to learn how to apply.

Good luck.