Most everyone agrees, you need to network to find work these days. With unemployment as high as it is, networking gives job seekers the best chance in landing jobs, with some saying as high as 70% of jobs found are through connections made.  A short time ago companies aggressively searched for talent.  It took nothing more than posting your resume on Monster.com, and within days or weeks you would be at an interview. Those days are long gone and now it can take months to get the chance to sit across the table with a potential employer .  There is no way around it, it's up to the individual to seek the companies out, to get noticed, to find the connections that will open doors to companies that lead to jobs.  In todays world, its not what you know, its not who you know, but who knows you.
     
     Unfortunately, networking doesn't come easy to many people.  Oh, there are some crazies out there who thoroughly enjoy it , but I would argue a lot are uncomfortable doing it. If you're like me , you view going to networking events with no greater enthusiasm than an appointment with the dentist. Fortunately, I've learned, networking is a skill, and like most things, the more you practice the better you get at it.  As a life long introvert, I knew I needed to read up on the subject so last year I picked up and read the book "Highly Effective Networking" to help jump start my networking activities. I am convinced introverts can be extroverts when necessary and this very informative, motivating, and inspirational book is a great resource to learn how. I highly recommend it to all, whether you are a seasoned networker or just beginning. 

     Below are some highlights from the book that stuck with me as I searched for work this past year. 

• You can’t control hiring.  You can control networking.
• Stay with it, it’s a numbers game. 
• People do learn how to network.
• Networking is about becoming a candidate for jobs that are not yet announce.
• Its important to let decision makers know you exist, and that you are qualified, available, and definitely interested in person or on the phone.
• Make a project plan for your job search. 
• Networking is not about selling, its about information exchange between people who share a common interest. 
• Real networking is an authentic conversation, common interests and information exchange.  
• Networking is people connecting with people, linking ideas and resources.
• Job hunters are more likely to get connected to their next job through someone they know less well rather than through their best friends.
• You don’t need to have a strong relationship with someone to network.
• Job searching is like any project at work; plan it, organize the work, implement, measure progress, adjust plans as needed.
• Project plan includes:  Objective- what kind of work you want to do, Target Market – where you want to work, Core Message – what you will say about yourself.
• Be clear about what you are hunting for – the more clear the easier it is to find.
• A personal objective defines what kind of work you want to do.
• Target Market is defined by location, industry and size.
• The more precise you define the organization the better.
• Your target list is just as important as you resume.
• For most job hunter a list of 40 organizations is a good starting point.
• You’re interested in reaching organizations not job openings.
• 10 to 50 job openings per month must come up from your Target Market.
• Your core message describes your qualifications in the language of your target market.
• Your project plan prepares you for a proactive job search.
• You are looking for information on organizations, not job openings.
• The project plan – professional objective, target market, and core message is exactly the word you want to get out when networking.
• The more you know about an industry the better off you’ll be when networking.
• Most job hunters are hired by Decision Makers whom they’ve met before the position is open.
• Project Plan:  deciding what you want to do, where you want to do it, and how you’re going to present yourself.
• Talk with as many people as possible about your job search.
• Networking goals:  get the word out, gather information, talk to insiders, get intouch with Decision makers.
• You want others to talk about you positively.
• Enthusiasm towards your work and a positive attitude is very important.
• Reassure people you are not asking for big impossible favors.
• Simplest way to make your  personal contacts comfortable is to tell the truth, explain your plan.
• Tell people you’d be grateful for introductions only if they are comfortable.
• Information about a target is extremely important.
• Getting your message out is like planting seeds for the future.
• The more people who know what kind of work you seek, what kind of organizations you are interested in  and was skills you have the better chance you have.
• Try to set up meetings for introductions.
• Networking works best with phone calls – real time.
• Start networking with strongest relationships then move to the colder ones.
• Gather your courage and work the cool zone.
• Don’t let resume distribution substitute your networking.
• Effective networking is about deciding to do it well, preparing to network, talking to the right people the right way, getting through to the Decision maker, and land a job.
• Most job hunters use a combination of personal and professional contacts.
• Look for contacts who are both personal and professional contact.
• Offer information as well as asking for it.
• Be judicious about asking for referrals.
• Your primary focus of your questions is organizational needs – link your experience to those needs and goals.
• Let them know how you can help them. Don’t hesitate to let them know how much you want to work there.
• Networking goals;  collecting information, getting your message out, an meeting people.
• Prepare carefully when meeting with a decision maker.
• In your professional networking, you need to be a well informed professional, not merely a job hunter.
• Share information on industries, organizations, people in those organizations, best practice in your profession.
• Networking is about information exchange, so be prepared to exchange information you have gathered.
• Gather information on organizations, people on google, websites, articles,
• Industry news is what managers want.
• You can be informed on people if you know how to use the internet.
• With professional contacts it may be better to offer information before you receive it.
• With professional contact focus more on shared interest – industry, trends people, professional information.
• With professional contacts ask for introductions.
• Connecting with decision makers is easier when you’ve researched them.
• Check the internet for background information about them.
• Add decision maker names and title in target list.
• Find as much information on decision makers as possible.
• Give profession contacts your resume after you have met with them.
• Try to get introduced before they pass your resume out.
• Get back to people you’ve already talked to.
• Keep contacts informed and part of your job search.
• As you loop back to contacts, some of them will become part of your job searching team.
• Keep professional contacts in the loop too, but businesslike and brief.
• Real time conversations is the best way to get information quickly.
• Keep record of every contact and record of every networking partner.
• Be systematic about keeping records on: your contacts, your conversation, target organizations.
• Keep records on the conversations.
• Keep a file on each targeted organization – spreadsheets
• Your three most important internet activities:  Evaluate your internet presence, use social networking, do internet search.
• Find common interest with professional contacts.
• Combine networking with the other six search techniques – walk in , direct mail, cold call, applications, ads, postings, and recruiters.
• 50 to 70 percent of job searchers get jobs through networking.
•  Follow up, follow up, follow up with decision makers. 

And finally...

• Networking is not part of your job search, IT IS YOUR JOB SEARCH. 

 

     What happens when there is misunderstanding and ambiguity in projects?  You could potentially end up with very different project results as is illustrated in the cartoon above.  It is not uncommon for clients, project managers and other stakeholders to have different perspectives on project requirements. This occurs frequently, and if not dealt with immediately, project haziness can quickly have a negative impact on a project.  Nobody heavily invested in a project wants to see this, especially the client. To reduce the risk of ambiguity, gathering requirements must start early in the development of the project and occur often throughout the life of it. Clarity is the name of the game. Unfortunately this is easier said than done, and project managers will find that gathering requirements is one of the first big challenges they will face with their clients.  Nonetheless, the importance of having a good process for collecting project requirements cannot be overstated. Project requirements are used to define scope of work and are the inputs for work break down structures. They are what deliverables, activities, and schedules originate from. For these reasons, project managers must have project clarity prior to planning, designing, building or executing any part of the project.

     Clients are often good at expressing their wants but not their needs. In the swing project illustration, for example, the client only really needed a tire swing but explained as though he/she wanted something else. Project managers must always look for needs.  A successful project starts with the knowledge of what the client really needs and ends when those needs are satisfied. If a project manager is not clear on what the client needs out of the project, don't expect him or her to know what it takes to complete it.   More often than not, project managers have to prepare the client to have the attitude, commitment, and willingness to be involved because not all clients will be open and proactive in this process.   

Here are a few tips for gathering requirements;

• Choose the right person for the job, someone with exceptional communication skills and technical background. 
• Meet with the customer frequently- the sooner the better
• Ask plenty of questions
• Use interviews, focus groups, workshops.
• Use these group creativity techniques: brainstorming, nominal group technique, the Delphi technique, idea/mind mapping, affinity diagram.
• Distribute questionnaires and surveys.
• Document and confirm
• Revisit the requirements often

 

      The City of Tempe recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of an amazing environmental project, the Tempe Town Lake.  That was December 12th, 2009. Eight months later, Tempe Town Lake is no longer a lake but back to an empty riverbed as it was before. The culprit: one of four inflatable rubber bladders on the west end of Tempe Town Lake failed and released 977 million gallons of water (the equivalent of 50,000 swimming pools) down the river. Witnesses said it started with what sounded like a “large explosion”, followed by the rubber bladder collapsing and a surge of water, 8 to 10 feet high, emptying in to the salt-water river. Fortunately, no one was on the lake at the time and no injuries or deaths were reported. It seems fitting, however, a project with such difficultly getting off the ground and actually being built suddenly failing as it did. This incident just adds more controversy to an already controversial project.        

     The idea for Tempe Town Lake originated in 1966 from Dean Elmore of the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and his students.  They envisioned building a series of locks and channels along the dry riverbed. They proposed refilling the channels with water, building sections of park and greenbelt along the rivers neglected banks and rehabilitating the surrounding ecosystem.  After years of research, planning, political bickering and fighting the opposition, eight rubber bladder dams, each 16 feet tall and 240 feet in length, were installed along the river, creating a 2-mile long lake with over 220-surface acres of water. On June 2, 1999, water from the Central Arizona canal began flowing into the Tempe Town Lake and 30 days later the lake was officially declared full. Tempe finally had its lake... up until last month of course.
      
     Interesting enough this incident should have been avoided all together.  In 2009, Bridgestone Industrial Product, the manufacturer of the dams, urged the city of Tempe to replace the western dams because inspectors had found evidence of damaged material due to the scorching desert sun. Apparently, there once had been a plan in place to keep the rubber bladders constantly wet but for whatever reason it was never implemented. With no protection, the Inflatable rubber dams, once thought to last 25-30 yrs, had no chance under the intense Arizona heat. The unfortunate part of if it all is had the city of Tempe and Bridgestone officials not spent so much time arguing over who was responsible, the damaged dam could have been replaced way before it failed last month. Now it seems Bridgestone will shoulder the cost for repairs and the lake will be back open prior to Tempe’s Ironman event in November but what a shame it is to have this happen to the lake. It took so long for the project to materialize, from its origins in 1966 to finally being built in 1999, and it washed away (literally) so quickly. Its just another black eye for a lake plagued with controversy.

References: 

 http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2010/08/05/News/Busted.Dam.Leaves.Tempe.Town.Lake.Dry-3924073-page2.shtml 


http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/282225

     I see it as only fitting that the topic for my initial blog on this website is related to the Internet.  The Internet is a fascinating thing, especially now with the increase use of social networking media.  For better or for worse, these networking sites in recent years have made the world a bit smaller and our lives a bit more public. Yes, there are pro and cons for posting information about yourself on-line, but if used with the understanding that everything you post can be seen by anyone, anywhere, and forever, I for one see social networking media as a good thing. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter allow us to freely express ourselves to the audience of our choosing in whatever way we desire. No doubt, the use of these sites has changed the way we communicate, the way we gain and pass information with one another. Social media allows us to easily and instantaneously get messages across to people and to get back in touch with those that were previously just memories. And even professional athletes, politicians, and celebrities alike are in on it, using social media to connect with people on a level that was not possible just a few short years ago. Celebrities communicating with the common man; It’s as if they are speaking directly to us (please note the sarcasm).  

     The absolute beauty of it all is that we are in full control of how we are perceived online. We create what is called an online profile, and many of us have multiple ones. In fact, in 2009, the majority of adults (52%) who used social networking media used more than one site. [1] Facebook is currently the most popular used online social networking site with over 500,000 million active users. [2] Among adult profile owners, 73% have a profile on Facebook.  Fifty percent of active users will log on any given day and spend a total of 700 billion minutes on monthly basis. Forty eight percent who have networking site profiles have a profile on MySpace and 14% have a LinkedIn profile. [1]

     Corporations are also using social networking sites to their advantage.  PM Networking came out this month with an article titled “Hire Power”, discussing how companies are joining the social media to recruit talent. It was an interesting read, especially for me since I’ve consciously tried this year to increase my online profile exposure by publishing this website and with my LinkedIn account as a means to communicate with employers.   Although social networking sites have been around for many years, recruiters just recently began using them to gather information on potential candidates.  Companies can directly learn about candidates and contact them with essentially no cost to them what so ever. According to Jump Start Social Media, as many as 75% of hiring managers use LinkedIn on a regular basis to research candidates.  Their method of recruiting is definitely evolving which means the ROI in online recruiting is very appealing to organizations.[3]

     Needless to say, there are many, many usages for social networking media and I think we have only scratched the surface. The common theme in all of it is we all want to be seen, heard, and understood by those important to us.  What social networking media does is it allows that to happen among groups of people that in normal circumstances would not be possible.

 

References:

[1] http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1484/social-media-mobile-internet-use-teens-millennials-fewer-blog

[2] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

[3] Danko, Jenn,. Hire Power. PM Network, July 2010. Project Management Institute.