He drew a very clear analogy that resonated with me. Way back in the late 19th century, visionary teachers and school administrators had to convince people of the need to make space and develop curriculum for shop class and home economics. Why? These two disciplines were deemed essential skills for tomorrow’s graduates.

Today, the same could be said for digital media citizenship.

This week, I participated in a panel discussion about the impact of social media on the high school experience. From my perspective as a parent, I do advocate the notion that parents should get in the game (click the link to see my presentation). One can assume that kids that grow up on the web get it. I checked my son’s Facebook settings and noting he was sharing everything with everyone, despite our family guidelines. He thought he had the settings nailed – not so. He has also needed to learn the lesson that you are what you post on the Internet.

Recent events have also highlighted just how tragic cyber-bullying has become. Over the past few weeks, I have noted people calling for more education or perhaps digital media citizenship courses for our tweens, teens and up and coming graduates. At this local meeting, parents were asking, “what is the high school doing to teach our kids”? Our local high school touches on social media across a handful of courses. I would imagine school board officials are taking a broader look at this now or soon. Perhaps we will see high school credit courses offering digital media citizenship? It would be a great way to mentor more up and coming leaders.

At the post-secondary level, we are seeing the career success agenda wrap social media/digital media citizenship into select classes and programs. From our viewpoint, it is something that needs to be weaved into entire programs from the day a student arrives. Check out David Johnson’s perspective on professionalism. As the Dean of the School of Business at Centennial College, it starts on day 1.

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.

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.

Two hours earlier, we were the discussing how our learning content at WhyHire.me has to evolve and develop through collaborative partnerships.  We do not claim to be experts in everything related to our program.  Our team offers great experience in teaching, marketing, coaching, communication tools & approaches and technology development but there are many other pieces to our training that we want to continue to develop and evolve, and we are looking for partners to assist.

So, from Amber’s perspective, I’m starting my co-op.  Over the past few weeks, I have been anxiously awaiting Sue Murphy‘s eBook, Creating Video for the Web: Tips, tricks and tools for telling amazing stories.  Sue had been thinking of developing an eBook and we have been looking for some fresh and insightful content to share with our students on the subject of producing video for their profiles.  Sue is making the content of her eBook available on her website at no charge.

This eBook will be a great new resource for our students.  We hope to work with Sue in upcoming months to develop some customized content for our specific application and I will be putting together some new video assignments based on Sue’s content.  The co-op starts.

As Amber Naslund states in her post;

“They’ll build social media like a co-op. Driven by a team united voluntarily, toward common goals, and equally invested in the outcomes.

Collaboration is not just a feel-good buzzword. It’s the idea that our business is built more efficiently through shared knowledge, and shared responsibility.”

I look forward to more collaborative work with Sue Murphy and others with specialties and knowledge that will make the teaching and approach of WhyHire.me more powerful and engaging for our students.  We can’t do it alone.  Well, I guess we could, but like Amber, I don’t think that makes the best product, service or experience for our customers.

Many times over, school administrators and HR professionals ask why students should be coming out of school with an online brand. I was keen to get Dawn’s perspective on how social media has changed recruiting and how her clients react to seeing more than a traditional 2-page resume about a candidate.  For those that are interested in downloading the entire 10-minute podcast, simply click here.

For those interested in key sections, you can download and listen to key extracts:

Part 1

• How the Helping Friends Career Network got started
• The secret to her success becoming the top Twitter recruiter

Part 2

• Client reaction to social media in the recruiting world
• Stepping outside the traditional recruiting box – how and why
• Important employment trend – green businesses will mean more job / project opportunities

Part 3

• Advice to Educators and Leaders – become part of the movement
• Bring transparency and authenticity to the classroom

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.

Since I started web marketing at Oracle in 1997 (in Redwood Shores, CA),  I was lucky enough to be on the forefront of experimenting with email campaigns (before Constant Contacts), web seminars (before Webex), landing pages and content management systems (before Vignette, HubSpot). It was all pretty bleeding edge and exciting. At the time, the sales organizations at Oracle were skeptical as to how all these new tools could help generate leads. The prevailing marketing wisdom was all about direct marketing – calling, emailing and generally, interrupting people.

Marketing went off and started experimenting with communities, blogs, and engaging customers online. The ClueTrain Manifesto was a great book that really fired us all up and challenged us to rethink what “engagement” was all about. By engaging with customers and prospects with authentic content, offers, and two-way dialogues, marketing was able to establish a conversation with a prospect, before a sales rep called. All of a sudden, sales were emailing and calling into prospects that were interested in sales conversations.

Online marketing and social media have changed the sales and marketing game. All you need to do is look at the change in marketing spend that is predicted over the next several years. This rather long winded parallel suggests that online marketing will be embraced by hiring professionals and their internal clients. How the web evolved in the B2B and B2C sectors is a strong indicator as to how this will unfold in our daily lives as job seekers and hiring managers.

Students and working professionals can add web marketing/social media engagement to their job search methods. What is the payback for a hiring manager?

1. They are better equipped to learn more about a candidate before and after an interview;
2. Seeing how a candidate presents themselves online is key – it is getting increasingly difficult to shield anyone on the Internet these days;
3. It offers a candidate’s perspective on industry issues and how they relate to project experiences gained at post-secondary school;
4. It presents entirely new ways to gauge a candidates passion, initiative and leadership potential.

The web changed everything, including personal job search and ongoing career management.

What are select moments that represent branding opportunites?

1. Field research
2. Class presentations
3. Interviews with specialists
4. Group work with your team
5. …there are endless possibilities to capture compelling content that speak to your professional interests, passions or experiences you will have college or university.

Two journalists from an Australian TV show, brought their digital camera to a staged protest during a guest lecture from John Yoo.  He is the lawyer that wrote the legal brief that suggested torture was simply enhanced interrogation. In this case, I do applaud the two gentlemen for acting out in protest to this man’s views.

I missed class last week, so we had to move things into a higher gear for the students this week. The clock is ticking and they need to be ready for the job market in a few months.

Our focus this week was on making sure that they had done all their required research to clearly position their personal brand. Their personal research has revolved around defining their values, understanding their personality and looking at their strengths from a few different perspectives including on-line tools, their achievements and what their classmates have seen in them.

They have also been asked to think about their target. What audience are they looking at? Where do they want to work? What industry? What position? They don’t have all the answers, who does, but they need to have a target to start with. This is another part of their commitment to define their personal brand.

I threw a few big questions at them also including;
- What do you have to do to get to where you want to go?
- What do you want to get out of the next step in your career?

We’re still working on strategy. They are also setting up a bunch of social media accounts.

I will see the class again on Feb 24th, they have a trade show to organize and a break to take over the next two weeks.

They will be returning to class with their ‘Positioning’ Pitches in the WhyHire.me portal plus a professional photograph which represents their personal brand image.

We’re finally starting to move forward.

This google analytics chart shows the web site traffic I experienced as I went through the interview process. My conversations were spreading across the company!

A friend (Robert Saric) went through a similar experience last summer. His blog posts generated all kinds of interest that landed him a key contract.

These experiences demonstrate the power of social networking and personal branding. Dan Schawbel has a great personal branding process at this link. Check it out!