The Transparent Generation – Educators Take Note!

I have to admit, I do smile whenever I checkout my nephew’s Facebook pages. His entire life is being documented, minute by minute. So much information is being shared, indexed and made available for those that care, or those that have taken an interest in someone.

Today’s high school and post-secondary students are quite comfortable with logging in, sharing photos, texting updates and sharing their views on self-made or external news. They do have a tremendous opportunity to develop an online persona that can track their every movement from Friday afternoon, to very early in the morning on Sunday.

What about their future professional lives? How are they discovering and documenting their interests, passions and interaction with news (self-made, local or global)? Do they have a working framework that can help guide them through the discovery of their career passions? Where can they validate their unique views or new ideas? Where are they documenting and sharing their projects, outcomes and experiences?

Facebook and Myspace are not the place. Linkedin? Its the network where relationships and work experience matter. Tomorrow’s graduates need a clean break from social networks. They need a place to document their potential as they progress through post-secondary education and beyond.

Stay tuned for more on this topic. Whyhire.me is coming.

Finding passionate professors, partners and employees

I consider myself very lucky. Early in my post-secondary education, I found myself in a business writing class at Algonquin College with a professor named Doug Duminie (see photo). Doug was one of those teachers that really switched me on.

He was so engaged with the content and how to effectively deliver the knowledge.

Let

Social media tools allow people to join together online to discuss, contribute, share, influence and create. The tools that make these functions possible are diverse and changing rapidly.

Most people are aware of Facebook (much more on Facebook in future posts) and MySpace which are social networking tools. Next on the list would be YouTube for video sharing or Flickr for photo sharing. This blog is another form of social media. But more recently we have micrblogging with Twitter or social bookmarking and tagging using a variety of tools including Digg, Technorati or StumbleUpon. The tools keep coming at us and provide us with new ways to connect and affect the world around us. We are no longer the silent masses but individuals that have a voice and the ability to share and promote our thoughts, perspectives and expertise.

The students of tomorrow can take advantage of these tools to market themselves, their ideas, and their differences to potential employers. We want to give them a new platform to develop their professional social media persona but they must also learn to manage their social persona.

Validation from Seth Godin

As part of our research for WhyHire.me, we are continually looking for validation of our concept for personal branding students.

Welcome to the WhyHire.me blog