Part-time Professor of the Year, Patti Church!

A big shout out to Patti Church, for winning the Dianne Bloor Part-time Faculty Award at Algonquin College this year. When she was nominated by Jennifer Monk, Patti was honored to be amongst so many other amazing instructors, each with their own unique experiences worthy of such an award.

As the event drew closer, my biased perspective was, the award was hers. I watched her develop and execute so many creative programs and interesting new learning experiences for her students. Many of them have thanked her profusely and she continues to stay in touch with them.

I have every belief she will continue to inspire students and build amazing new learning experiences. She is a change agent that will keep pushing for new tools and programs that bolster the student experience.

Thank you Jennifer Monk (@jenmonk) for nominating, suporting and inspiring her.

Algonquin College PR Grads of 2010

The public relations program is piloting WhyHire.me this term. I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with this class of graduating PR professionals.  I’d like to introduce you to a few who have chosen to make their WhyHire.me profiles public.  Click their names to see their WhyHire.me profiles. There will be more coming soon!

Femi Fasoyinu -  Taking a proactive approach to building relationships, Femi makes his teamwork skills an asset to any organization. Femi takes on assignments with enthusiasm to deliver his best work. Being an organized, professional, and energetic communicator, Femi takes on challenges with more than the required effort every time.

Mae McCrae - Mae is a compelling speaker with a passion for positively influencing lives. A former youth leader, she now manages a young marrieds group, drama, and music department for her church. Mae has a flare for giving a project a unique and recognizable stamp. Her way with words and great listening skills will be valuable to any organization.

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Ziem Phala – A hardworking and energetic communicator, Ziem has a passion for public relations and fashion. Her drive and creativity have helped her succeed in a team managing musicians and as a self starter . Her background in mass communication and public relations give her a unique outlook on communications and social media and their uses in fashion.

Samantha Dumas – Samantha is a positive, motivating force on every team. She thrives as a collaborative leader and is a confident problem-solver. These qualities allow her to take on big projects such as coordinating urban arts festival, House of Paint. Samantha is both intelligent and intuitive. She has a passion for learning, writing, dancing and singing.

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Yael Santo – A love for the written word serves as the driving force behind Yael’s commitment to perfect her writing skills. Her creativity outside the page is found in strategy development, while her commitment to quality work is reflected in her grades. High organizational skills, strong communication skills, and bilingualism make her an asset to any project.

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Sarah Shirey – I am a vibrant, forward-looking, and passionate public relations practitioner interested in building a career focused on achieving impressive results for an organization with a bias for action. I have significant, hands-on training in various PR roles, including issues management, event management, project management, and relationship management.

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Samantha Hartley – Samantha is an energetic self-starter committed to growth and believes hard work is the path to success. Her thirst for knowledge has transformed her from a small-town girl to a young woman ready to take on the world. A three-year honour student, she’s a natural communicator and believes in maintaining relationships through respect and trust.

Amy Campsall – Amy strives to exceed expectations while creating new opportunities. Her compassion makes her an excellent team player, while her independence and ability to adapt allow her to face challenges with enthusiasm. Amy has experience in event management and social media and is looking to build a career in communications, while continuing to learn.

Algonquin Career Week – Innovation & Connections

Algonquin’s Career Week is underway.  I was fortunate enough to be a speaker yesterday along with many others.  My 45 min. presentation focused on Developing Your Online Personal Brand.  You can find the presentation on Slideshare and I will be presenting it again on Thursday at 2:30pm.  I digress…

I had hoped to attend the session The Future of Careers in Science, Technology & Engineering by Louis Lamontagne but I was called into a meeting and could not make it. While I was checking Twitter after my meeting, I found a link from the Algonquin Students Association of a video version of the presentation.  I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and was thrilled to see Algonquin being innovative in the use of new tools to share information and promote learning.

As I listened to his insights and words of advice there were many comments that struck a cord with me.  At several points in his presentation he noted the importance of ‘distinguishing’ yourself as a candidate for a position.  His words of advice included adapt and be flexible, be enthusiastic, ask questions, show interest, and get involved.  One of our key messages to our students is about showing initiative.

At the end of his presentation, he stressed the importance of revealing to employers that as a candidate you should be well-rounded. He then suggested getting involved in sports, pick up hobbies and doing volunteer work and overall all to ‘milk this place (the college)’ while you are there. Like Lamontage, we strongly believe that students should be extracting and seeking out experiences during their time at school.  In the end, your goal as a candidate is to distinguishing yourself from the crowd and it takes actions and commitment to do that.  I definitely connected with Lamontage’s view and hope to meet him in person one day soon.

Kaplan Message – It’s your time…to simply remotely listen?

Faculty and students – what is your perspective on the Kaplan message?

The message states educators have failed you and that a new model of learning is in order. The actor and visuals suggest the solution is largely about remote distance learning – on a train, at home and in your jammies. I get that.

From our perspective, this message leaves 2/3 of the required changes off the table.

What changes?

• How about more open learning? Why not let students and faculty learn and share across classes, programs or heaven forbid different schools?
• How about offering students a voice such they can learn new ways to share and collaborate in a semi-private setting across their virtual class?
• Why note give students the means to link industry and external stakeholders to a classroom? This would facilitate alumni mentoring, project exchanges and downstream recruiting for those that reveal their potential in an open, more transparent way.

Many talented teachers are experimenting with all forms of new tools, methods and teaching practices aimed at stimulating creativity, innovation and new forms of learning. Early adopters of WhyHire.me were brave enough to move forward with our learning materials and supporting technology – we are all learning in an open and transparent way. Dave Donaldson, Jim Kyte and Wendy Threader from Algonquin College. Leighann Neilson from Carleton University. David Johnson and Michael Vourakes from Centennial College. Lyle Wetsch from Memorial University. Francis Gunn and David Martin from the Ted Rogers School of Business. All of these people stared down the traditional barriers to changing how students can learn and explore new forms of collaboration and communication using social media. Kudos to you all!

I went back to the Kaplan web site looking for a means to offer feedback on the video. I was fully expecting to read comments and learn other perspectives about learning 2.0. A basic search for the term blog rendered no results. I found all kinds of great looking material and the means to chat online with a recruiter…but no means to share, learn or discuss.

Since there is no venue for such a dialogue, let’s continue it here.

What do you think is missing in education?

How should it change?

What are the barriers to transforming how we learn?

Focusing on the Pitch

This week the Algonquin PR students and I focused on understanding product branding, personal branding and developing their ‘Positioning Pitch’.  In a WhyHire.me profile, students have 350 characters to develop their clear concise message which sets the tone of their personal brand. It should highlight their keywords which could include personality traits, skills, strengths, or values which they discovered in Dig Deep.  Additional ingredients for their pitch include a ’splash’ of proof to provide validity and a target which could be a position, industry, value system, or location they have in mind.

At first it seems easy to write a paragraph but soon into the process I start hearing: ‘this is hard’, ‘I don’t feel comfortable writing about myself this way’ and ‘I really don’t know what makes me unique’.  These are initial thoughts that many people have when they start this process. However, it’s so important to put in the time to craft a message that is clear, unique and strong for not only your profile but your overall personal brand which will be used in meetings, interviews, emails, career fairs, resumes and more.  Employers want to know what grads have to offer, what makes them different and how they can solve the organization’s business problems.

I look forward to reading their pitches as they start to pop up in our social network and I hope a few of these students will get a chance to use their pitches at the upcoming Algonquin College Career Week (Feb 8-12).  Career Week features a job fair and a series of information session and networking opportunities for past and present students to connect with industry.

Start by Digging Deep – Values, Passions and Strengths

Yesterday, my class of Algonquin PR students and I started the process of digging deep.  Many people think that our program is centered around social media tools.  There is no question that technology is a large part of getting your personal brand online but first you have to develop a clear message.

We start the process of self-discovery by looking into several key issues including; personal values, personality, strengths, achievements, passions, the opinions of others and finally, we take a brief look at weaknesses. To many this seems to be a little far from the original expectations of developing an online presence but you have to start at the heart of the matter.

People don’t give enough thought to what they are all about, what they can offer the world, and what they want to offer the world. We’re all so busy, overworked and overwhelmed to give ourselves the time we deserve. It’s easier to think about stuff, to-do lists, tasks, technology, friends, ….. We all need to take the time to think about what’s important to us, what we have to give to others and how we want to continue to develop and grow.

Do you know what your values, passions and strengths are? I hope my PR students now have a better handle on these big issues and now know what their keywords and phrases are, we will see next class.

Go…..

The Winter 2010 version of WhyHire.me is up and classes are underway.

With every new version we take 3 steps forward and one step back. The beauty of software development, I suppose. With our enhancements comes the need for refamiliarization. With new features there is always some regression. Like I said a few posts ago, life is beta and software is a part of all of our lives now.

I introduced the second year Algonquin College Public Relations students (the graduates of 2010) to WhyHire.me today. I’m thrilled to be working with them to develop their personal branding using WhyHire.me. They are getting ready to enter the working world and have considerable real world experience for us to work with. They are familiar with social media tools because they have used several in classes already and they are trained communicators that are open and eager.  Couldn’t ask for a better combination.

I asked them to rate what they experienced today in class.  I gave them three options for evaluation – thumbs up, middle thumbs or sideways thumbs, and thumbs down. I think all evaluations should be so simple. This was their answer!

READY, SET…..

We’re on the verge of a new academic term which is very exciting for us.  Within days we will have another 500+ users on the Winter 2010 version of WhyHire.me.  More users, more schools and a lot more changes!  A little daunting at times as we have worked into the wee hours but so incredibly exciting as we see our program grow and develop with the help of our users and their institutions.

Our inaugural term was Fall 2009, when we launched 650 users from Algonquin College, Carleton University and Centennial College onto the system.  We experienced a few bumps with provisioning (we were putting students in the right classes until exam time), interface usability issues (they all want the system to be like Facebook – although I am thrilled that we are being compared to a 350 million user system with thousands of staff, they are big shoes to fill and not the same kind of product), and it was obvious it was time to upgrade the blogging component.

Our students created a group called Facebook vs. Whyhire.me which provided us with feedback as well as the Support group that was set up by us.  In addition to the groups, we have had countless in class and online conversations with users about issues to improve and all of our schools did their own research into the use of WhyHire.me.

Overall, we are thrilled with the results and appreciate the feedback.  The Winter 2010 release will include integration of WordPress (Yeah!), a new Zone that will provide the learning tools in a very dynamic environment for users, and dozens of small changes that will make the usability and experience more enjoyable for everyone.  And of course, we have cleaned up the provisioning and we dramatically simplified our pricing model.

We know that all the students want it for free but as an organization we do not want to develop an advertising based model when the product is being delivered in educational institutions. We just don’t think it’s right and will continue to follow the model of student payment based on institutional, and professor endorsement in a class, similar to the textbook model. Students will receive an account to the social network plus their personal URL, an 80 page eBook and interactive learning modules. The pricing for Winter 2010 is $29 for 12 months or $39 for life. We simplified it for all the different programs and uses.

This term Memorial University will be integrating WhyHire.me into a E-Marketing class and the MBA program. The Ted Rogers School of Business Hospitality and Retail programs (Ryerson University) will be using WHM in two separate HR oriented classes. Algonquin’s PR students will be developing online personal brands and well as the 3rd year Business Marketing students, where we piloted the program last year, and lastly, we will have another gang at Centennial jumping into the world of personal branding.

So, we are on the edge of our seats: uploading, testing, teaching and just on the verge of ………GO.

Reconnecting with Thomas Lynn at Algonquin College

The Story:

Thomas Lynn was a student of mine three years ago in my Marketing 1 class at Algonquin College.  I remember that Thomas was a mature (returning to school after having a careering in social work) from PEI, with 2 boys and he was an excellent student that asked questions, participated and had a keen interest in Marketing.  Turns out that he has majored in Marketing at Algonquin.

Last summer, we briefly ran into each other in a hallway and swapped ‘hey how are yas’.  At the time, Thomas was working on a project for the business school.

I recently stumbled upon Thomas on Twitter a few weeks ago when I was looking for an update from the Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition which was held at Mohawk College on the weekend of November 19th.  I went to Twitter Search and was looking for anyone commenting on what was happening at the competition.  That’s when Thomas and I reconnected. These were the Tweets I was following that night:

With Twitter you read from bottom to top. You can follow Thomas on Twitter @thomaslynn.

After I read the post, I congratulated him, connected online and proposed that talk more about social media marketing and networking in Ottawa.  We ended up meeting at the first ever Gen Y Ottawa event at the Mercury Lounge along with close to 100 motivated Gen Yers.

At the Gen Y event Thomas and I talked at length about his experience with social networking tools, his win at OCMC and what his WhyHire.me experience would be like next term in his Transition to Marketing Professional class.  We also talked about my upcoming speaking engagement in his Integrated Marketing Communication class.  I needed to understand what level of knowledge the students had prior to my talk.

Our discussions have continued and Thomas is recently started a WordPress blog which we will help him attach to his WhyHire.me profile next term.  The story will continue as the pieces of Thomas’ social media marketing strategy for his personal brand evolve.  The icing on the cake will be pulling the pieces together and further explaining the potential next term.

The Experiment:

This post is legitimate post but also a test of SEO for student Thomas Lynn, Business/Marketing student at Algonquin College in Ottawa.  I will reveal the story as the experiment progresses.

Phase I – I googled Thomas Lynn and Algonquin College and in 1 minute after completing the post I found Thomas on the first page of Google in our blog.  I then googled Thomas Lynn and Ottawa and I found him in 1 minute on the second page of Google.  I tried Thomas Lynn and checked 10 pages and couldn’t find my blog entry.

Phase II – I added tags to the post including Algonquin College, Thomas Lynn, and marketing student.  I also added the first phase of our story, the past.  The results were that in 5 minutes Thomas Lynn and Algonquin College was the first entry on the first page of Google.  When I searched Thomas Lynn and Ottawa the blog post showed up on the first page as the 5th entry.  I still can’t find the post on the first 10 pages of when I just include his Thomas Lynn.  I guess I should point out now that my Thomas Lynn is fighting for search with a man that is on death row which makes this experiment more interesting.  Now to add to the story above; the present.

Phase III – I added the Twitter connection to the story which which included links and some new tags.  The results of the search did not change in 5 minutes but I will check again later this afternoon.  Google bots need some time to find your story.  Phase IV will come tomorrow.

Phase IV – Results are the same.  Phase V will occur as part of his WhyHire.me profile next term.

Over the Hump & Playing in Their New Sandbox

It’s the end of October and also the middle of midterms for college and university students across the country.  I guess you could say we are over the ‘hump’ of the first term.  Getting over the hump means that we have activity in the WhyHire.me portal.  Most students are 60-75% finished their learning modules.  We are starting to see new photos uploaded, pitches being written, blog posts going up and videos being loaded.  And for the most part, unless you are in one of our classes, you can’t see any of it.

You can’t see anything because you are not in a class that has adopted WhyHire.me as a program and learning environment for personal branding.  Those that have chosen to use the program have closed the doors to the public while they learn and explore the world of social networking for personal branding.  Yes, this generation is very aware of social networks because of Facebook, MySpace and YouTube but they are not familiar or comfortable with using social networks for developing a professional presence.  That’s why we have developed a place where they can learn and experiment with their classmates and professors.  We’re also playing with them in their new sandbox.  We have 14 classrooms involved in business programs at Algonquin College, Centennial College and Carleton University.

I spoke to a few classes recently and here are a few comments from students in the class:

“The presentation was great, I really enjoyed it even though it was pretty early on a Friday morning. I can say it was very inspiring for me, gave me new ideas on to what I can do with me as a brand.”

“After your talk today (which very much inspired me), I was thinking I would film an introduction video of myself for the profile. A sort of visual media piece to make me stand out and inform people of what I’m about.”

“I think the lessons and system are very educational. The creativity and thought put into this system is very much appreciated. It’s about time we started stepping away from just the traditional resumes and use technology to help promote ourselves. Congratulations to you and your team for being so innovative and allowing a new perspective into the education system.”

I’m looking forward to the second part of the term, as more students play, experiment and start to understand the power of the developing their own personal brand.