At the end of last year, as I started Dave Atkins Media!, I made a conscious decision to limit my "organizational activities" to avoid being sidetracked into non-productive activity. I spent about 2 hours making a website and elected to operate as a sole proprietorship with an excel spreadsheet as my general ledger. I used Freshbooks online invoicing to track my hours and bill my clients. Then, I landed the contract job at Mass.Gov and dove into that...

I'm going down to Needham Bank this morning to open a business account. Then I will turn in my d/b/a certificate at town hall, apply for an occupancy permit from the building department, apply for a sign permit to go on the front of my office space at 291 Washington Street, then get to work drawing up my articles of incorporation. What's different?

I will provide more details here, but basically, I'm more serious about this now. I have less time to talk about it and more time to do.

And yes...that website needs some work. I know where it needs to go now though...

My job at Mass.Gov, as manager of the Massachusetts Recovery website, ended on September 30. I have hesitated to blog about it here for two reasons: 1) I do not want to "burn any bridges," by writing negatively about an experience that did not work out for me and 2) I need to honor the standard contractor confidentiality agreement I was asked to sign before I was told my contract would not be renewed.

The job was not a good fit. The people at Mass.Gov are doing great things and the Governor's Office in particular is embracing social media and interactive communications as part of an engagement strategy that will positively change the way our government works. They--the full time staff--are laying the groundwork for the future that will be adopted gradually as leaders responsible for results see the value in these tools.

But it was an awkward situation for me. First of all, while I worked for Mass.Gov, my real "customer" was the Massachusetts Recovery Office--an oversight agency that was in the process of being formed. My position was a contract job--and contract jobs have to be renewed every 90 days, so technically, I was not fired--the contract was just not renewed for me. I should have had no expectation of automatic continued employment. But I never thought of it as a just a contract job.

My leaving was not for performance reasons--in fact I was told repeatedly that I had accomplished a lot, my work was appreciated, but the Recovery Office wanted a more junior person for this particular role--to focus on just posting content to the web site. The requirements of the role changed significantly over the course of a few months--and I wanted my role to be more expansive than it was.

I'm sure for many, my presence was a mystery. How could someone with my experience be happy managing a web site? Some people felt I was "overqualified." But I saw the job as an opportunity that fit into a larger vision of how I thought I could do something good for others while developing relationships with influential people in state government. I canceled a final round of interviews with another company because I saw the potential of this role to allow me to make a significant contribution by using my talents in communication, technology, and social media to help economic recovery.

I think that ambitious attitude wasn't perceived as altruistically as I'd like. I don't know really. I felt as though there was something wrong about me. I didn't understand why people did not want to take advantage of what I thought I was offering.

I had similar frustrations years ago working for a legislative committee staff in Washington State. The role was non-partisan--a summer internship in 1992--but I was most definitely identifiable as a Democrat when I attended the 1992 Democratic National Convention as an alternate delegate for Paul Tsongas. I was careful to separate those things--as careful as I was to separate my own personal blogging from my work with mass.gov--but I think there is just a fundamental conflict that makes bureaucrats and staff uncomfortable. When people did not assign me projects...I sought them out. People were polite but non-responsive. I created projects and tried to find work to do. I remember creating study of all 50 states welfare reform initiatives. When the summer ended...no followup, no explanations, no invitation back.

What have I learned? I think I will never be comfortable sitting in the chairs behind the people at the conference table. I was not patient enough for that when I was in my 20s; why would I want that in my 40s? I need to work and make money--we all do. But for the things I want to do with my life, I need to just do them and not look for someone to hire me. I would rather serve as an official in my town than be the Governor's chief of staff. I would rather see a single bike lane painted in my town...or a crosswalk improved...and have a neighbor thank me for doing something that matters to them--than draft "the solution" to health care reform.

So now I focus on what next...and fill out my work search log and file my weekly claim.

to be continued...

I'm looking forward to a social gathering and speech tonight where Dan Schawbel will talk about "personal branding"--how you market yourself to other people. I've had an amazing amount of interest in my story of using social media in my search for work, including a number of media interviews, most recently a front-page story in the Boston Business Journal.

I've expanded my network greatly, but I recognize I am still not very narrowly-defined...people send me job listings I'm way under or overqualified for and they are surprised when I talk about my involvement in local issues. The "mash-up or blended life" is not a great "closer" for an interview. And pursuit of starting my business Dave Atkins Media! is confusing--am I looking for a job or work or both?

You can watch me talk about this in my first video blog post below:

That's a first draft video effort, so bear with me! Note: in the video, I say something like "why would anyone know more than a dozen people..." I was talking about people in your technology specialty...not your family, friends, etc. !

Update:

I'm including the raw video footage below from Dan's talk. This will not win any awards for production quality, but the content is worth listening to...

I am featured in a story today in the Christian Science Monitor, Blogs: An Effective Job-Hunting Tool?, but after describing my efforts positively, the article quotes one naysayer in particular who does not understand the context of my efforts:

Not everyone shares his enthusiasm. "Blogging and Internet searching for jobs is worthless," says Drew Stevens, a business growth consultant in St. Louis. "Almost 65 percent of positions are discovered from your network and peer group."

I wrote about how my blogging has greatly expanded my personal network and increased my influence even before I was laid off, but it is worth re-iterating here how social media is a complement to offline activities. I have difficulty finding the time to keep my blogging up because I am so busy with other efforts that have been generated from the relationships I have developed and strengthened through social media.

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Update:
You can now view:

• Dave Atkins interview with Tory Johnson on ABC NOW
• Susan Kang Nam talks about Salty Legs Job Club with Tory Johnson
• Madeline Laurano talks about finding her new job

Staring into a television camera for a remote interview was a surreal experience. I felt spontaneity and improvisation that is challenging to describe. I suspect, for celebrities, the feeling changes, and it becomes like just another conversation. Those who have never done it probably think it sounds terrifying. There is fear, but not terror. For me, I felt the sensation of being completely and utterly "on," with no safety net, no ability to control or plan, and an almost detached sense of hearing myself respond in the moment.

In that moment, I found my instinct and preparation ruled the day. There is not time to consider 5 seconds ago and no time to plan the next 5 seconds. There is faith that who I am will show and hope that what I've told myself is truth will reveal. But there is no analysis, there is only the moment...a moment that goes on for several minutes and then is gone.

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I had the opportunity to speak with a local reporter about my layoff and search for work. One of his questions was whether I had advice for other people.

I was hesitant. I don't have a complete success story to tell yet, but I can describe what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I think social media gives us a far more authentic and easier way to establish and maintain a personal network.

A friend asked me if he should "post something on LinkedIn." As I've connected with people I know, I find there are plenty of people who are not on LinkedIn, many who have never heard of twitter, and few who would consider Facebook as part of a job search. So, while I do not have a ready-packaged story of how social media got me a job, I thought it would be helpful to give examples of what I'm doing, on the chance that it would give other people ideas.

Dan Schawbel wrote a great piece a few weeks ago on the real way to get a job using social media that mirrored what I'm already doing. But there is an almost overwhelming amount of such advice out there and I hope that by describing my specific case, it may help people better visualize what they can do...to see the value in these activities...

Let's start with LinkedIn. There are some great tips at ImOnLinkedInNowWhat, a blog that complements a book, but here's what I'm discovering...

At a bare minimum, joining LinkedIn will allow you to:

• put a version of your resume online so you can send people a quick link in an email like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/daveatkins
• keep track of co-workers who may change email address/company/etc.
• give you an opportunity to have past and present co-workers write recommendations for you that show up on your profile. Not heavy duty recommendation letters, but just short positive statements...then, other people will see your profile linked in from your friend's profile.
• allow you to research people you may be interviewing with.

To illustrate this last point, here's what I did recently: I saw an interesting job that seemed like it might be a good fit on Startuply.com. Before sending in a resume, I looked over the list of founders and searched for their names on LinkedIn. From viewing their public profiles, I could see that one was an MIT alum like me. Then I searched for him on twitter and started "following" him. In addition to sending my resume, I sent a message directly to this person and arranged a phone call--not necessarily to interview for the position, but to connect for networking. When I spoke with him, I had his whole resume in front of me. I also noticed another company he had founded that sounded very interesting...which led to my discovery of BlitzTime.

I did not get the job. But I did make a good connection that led to connections with more resources (see my blog post about BlitzTime). I did not see my phone interview as a defeat, but rather a step in the process. I was learning. I was expanding my knowledge and increasing the probability of finding opportunities.

There are many more uses for LinkedIn...I've only scratched the surface here...but my point is to answer the question of "why bother?" and perhaps fire up a little interest in learning more. I too had read advice about using LinkedIn, but I had to take action to start to find value. There is a certain leap of faith and comfort without concrete returns that should be a part of any job search strategy.

The best advice I can give is to stay positive. An article in US News offers 7 Reasons You Won't Get a Job in 2009, but it's worth the read to recognize some old ideas that are DOA today. Most of the things they talk about don't even make sense to me--e.g. who sends copies of "recommendation letters" to a potential employer? But two "mistakes" stood out for the value a positive perspective lends to your efforts:

1. You're using your connections to find a job. Their point is that that you don't get a job from your direct connections, so don't waste your energy there. If your friends have a job for you...you would already know. The point is to use your connections' connections...to have your friends and colleagues thinking about who they might know who could help you. So when you talk to the people you already know...you ARE NOT begging for a job. You are giving them an opportunity to help you through who THEY know. When you think of it this way, I think it removes a lot of pressure...but it does force you to think of what to tell them so they can effectively help you.
2. You see your job search as personal and private. For many people, being laid off is a personal defeat, an embarrassment. When I had to lay people off in a previous job I told them it was not the same as being fired and that they had done nothing wrong...but I think they thought it was just BS. Others got to stay, so they must have been better. Whatever. We don't have time for that kind of thinking now. I'm telling everyone who will listen that I was laid off and am looking for work. I say "looking for work" because while I did recraft my resume to empahsize my 13 years of internet technology operations experience, I am also launching an interactive media consulting business and looking for work where I can sustain myself independently.

As you can tell from the links in this post, I've spent a lot of time writing. I don't recommend people start there unless they are already doing it. I've been blogging here at DaveWrites for over 2 years and have written probably over 250 thousands words on topics as diverse as religion and economic development. It's my way of finding structure and purpose to what I feel I must do.

Landing the next gig is all about possibilities. It would be fair to criticize time spent on unproductive tasks, but in previous job searches (albeit where I was already employed and had more time luxury to wait for results), I think I limited myself by some self-analysis. In this quest, I do feel there is not enough time in the day, but I am not at all frustrated--I feel I have a million things to do and try...and of course I will adapt as I go along. The enemy of success here is to cut off possibilities by being prematurely critical. I feel that much of what I'm doing is "building a sail" or a "spreading a net." I don't know how a newspaper article about my being laid off will directly translate into opportunity...but it is all part of doing what I can do, utilizing all the tools, resources, skills, people, contacts, connections, and ideas I can to ignite a fire of interest in Dave Atkins.

I can imagine fewer more terrifying social experiments than what I signed up for last night. Blitz Time is a service for "speed networking" that sets participants up in a series of short, one-on-one phone calls with other people. Surprisingly, once I began, it was not nearly as scary as it was fun. That is saying a lot for me, a guy who is afraid to order pizza on the phone...

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I can plan, but I can also do. I posted my approach to strategy consulting a while ago, but then I realized, anyone can say that stuff. Listen to the client, help them. How hard is that? But I thought it might be useful to list some specific things I can do...things that presume a strategy and that could be done by many tech people...but perhaps it is not so obvious...

• Blogs - I can get you started blogging by setting up a website with a professional look and feel, with a "real" web address, and teach you how to use the authoring tools to post. I can coach you on how to write posts that people will want to read and how to deal with comments. I will not design your corporate website or make you a whole e-commerce site for your business...those projects take longer and are less rewarding than anyone ever wants. But a blog can be focused and simple to maintain.
• Twitter - I can show you what twitter is and how it can be useful. I can get you started tweeting and provide some guidance to help you understand if it is worthwhile to pursue. Many people "try out" social media, but don't go beyond registering and logging in once.
• Facebook - I can help you follow a strategy--again, avoiding the experience of signing up, filling out a profile, uploading a couple photos...and then not doing anything else for weeks. It's actually easier to help other people than maintain your own presence because, by yourself, you either get it because all your dorm friends are on it...or you tend to lapse.
• Wikis - Creating a wiki--a collaborative online workspace--is 1% technology and 99% advocacy and leadership by example. But that 1% can be daunting. And again, a coach or guide can be helpful to avoid the isolation of "why am I doing this?" that causes so many projects like this to die.
• Email Newsletters - my friend and I hosted a newsletter service almost a decade ago that he wrote from scratch. I would not be programming such a thing for you. I would use Listrak or Constant Contact. But newsletters are very time-consuming when a company has many other unexpected demands. I can put together the creative resources, deploy the weekly newsletter, and deal with the community management challenges, reporting back engagement and conversion metrics. This task alone saves you the eventual cost of hiring a person.
• Web Site Marketing and Analytics - At the most basic level, I can get you set up with Google Analytics so you can see a daily report of who is visiting your website. We can implement Search Engine Marketing (SEM)--paying Google for clicks to advertised links to your site. And I can review your site for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to assess if there are simple things that can be done to increase the number of people who find your site. I can determine how to make the urls on your site "friendly" and review your copy for editorial suggestions to improve relevance. SEO can be a very complex and expensive undertaking, or it can be an 80/20 rule thing where I spend half a day to figure out what will give you the most immediate results.
• Link Building - one of the most critical things to increasing traffic to your site is to be linked from other sites. There are services that will sign you up for directories. You may even receive offers in the mail for listings in references. These are like the "Who's Who" books our parents were sold as we graduated high school and college--they are almost entirely worthless and meaningless--as are all the search engines besides Google. If your company can afford a shotgun strategy, by all means, go for it. But what you really need is a sustained effort to cultivate relationships with other sites that might find your content valuable. For bloggers, this means commenting on other people's blogs and responding. It means firing off an email to people who comment on your site. It means setting up Google Alerts to watch for mentions of your company name in any news media, monitoring twitter and any other media that might be used by your customers, and then following up proactively to connect with people. One person at a time...you build a following. I don't have a magic application that will do that for you, but I can devote a set number of hours per week to help you stay on top of these things. Again, instead of doing it yourself or having this task take up a good part of some key employee's time, I can keep help you stay on top of things.

These are just some quick examples. They are not sexy but they are the kind of things that for most companies are easy to start but hard to maintain.

For a long time, my engagement with social media has not been organized. But now, much as we go through our holiday card lists, I'm looking at how I can use social media to connect and reconnect with everyone I know.

The Big Three
Social media and networking encompasses so many sites that it is overwhelming to keep track of them all. But there are really only three that are broadly adopted and serve specific purposes relevant to me: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

What are these sites?
Facebook grew out of the concept of the freshman picture book. It puts a photo with the name of a "friend" where "friend" is a relatively loose term that I define as anyone I care to know what they are doing and who might feel the same about me. Facebook friends don't need to be people you could call to bail you out of jail or watch your kids while you go to the emergency room.

Twitter is like passive instant messaging. You "follow" people you are interested in. Everyone posts updates in 140-character bursts (the limit is to allow posting via text messaging from cellphones where the message is limited to 140 characters). When you log in to the twitter web site, you see all the updates from all the people you are following. "Follow" in this context is very light...it doesn't mean you follow like you follow a leader. It's more like I continue to "follow" the Oakland Raiders and hope someday they win a game.

LinkedIn has been around the longest and is the most professionally-oriented site. It's like an online rolodex, an address book of connections--people I know personally. I may not have worked with them, but I know them enough that I would feel comfortable connecting them with other people. There is a basic level of trust required for connections.

I believe these three sites are the key ones anyone needs. MySpace...I don't know. My Mom joined myspace and so I joined too, but I feel like it is more about creating your own personal web page--which I do through my blog. So I don't maintain myspace. There are tons more sites, but they are generally for the super-social media fanatics.

Why Bother?
I spend so much time in the social media space that I think many of the folks there just don't get that 99% of the population still doesn't "get it" or see the point. So here's why I bother--or at least why I think these services are worth my participation.

Facebook is great because every time someone updates any information about themselves, that update is visible to all their friends when they log in. It's like an on-demand Christmas Letter. If you don't log in, you don't need to care. But if you do log in, you can see what people are doing. You see photos they are posting, links to interesting websites they are sharing, and groups they are joining. You also see lots of "application activity" which manifests itself in weird status updates like "Joe just bit you and turned you into a zombie." Whatever. I ignore that stuff. Or maybe it is interesting to me. "Diana took the favorite movie quiz--see how you compare." The point is that you can keep up with what people are doing without being intrusive. It is fun to see what people are doing and may prompt you to renew old friendships.

I've also written about facebook in the context of how it can be used to build community. When we started attending the Dedham Unitarian First Church last year, I started a facebook group for them and continue to follow what people are up to, even though we have now started attending First Parish, United Church of Christ, here in Westwood.

Twitter is immediate. It is accessible. Like Facebook, it allows you to follow what other people are doing, but the 140-character limit forces people to be really concise. The magic of twitter is how quickly communications can spread through a network of connections. When anyone I am following replies to something someone they are following says, I see that other person's name in the feed like "@daveatkins." That might prompt me to go look at their profile and follow them. A conversation can begin and quickly create a network effect.

Twitter is not just about status updates like "I'm thinking of having a beer." The people with thousands of followers use it to push out interesting bits of news and information or to comment on current events. You can ask a question of the "twitosphere" and sometimes a person will answer you:

question for cyclists: what style do you call those handlebars on fixed gear bikes...short bars that go out and forward...not drops, not mtb 6:52 PM Nov 19th from web

AlanLamb @daveatkins time trial (TT) bars also known as bullhorns. 6:56 PM Nov 19th from twitterrific in reply to daveatkins

The real fun of twitter is the accessibility. It is like instant messaging in that you can fire off direct messages and replies to other people. If you are intelligent, genuine, and honest, you will likely engage them in a conversation. I've met people on twitter and cultivated working relationships in the real world. It can be like a cocktail party where your ideas and passion--forcibly limited to 140 characters of text--allow you to connect and communicate.

LinkedIn, at its most basic level, allows you to post a form of your resume online. But that is only the beginning. Much like facebook, you connect with other people you know and perhaps write recommendations for one another. You can see who your contacts know and ask them to introduce you. For example, if you are interested in working for a particular company you may search to see who you can find that works there and is connected to people you already know. At a bare minimum, you can see their public profiles which may reveal connections you were not aware of, similar interests and backgrounds, etc. I was just searching on a company and found that someone I worked with is directly connected to the VP of Engineering...so I shot her a quick email.

There is a great book and website, I'm on LinkedIn, Now What? that is full of ideas on how to better utilize this service.

Putting it All Together
Networking is HARD for me. For years and year, I KNEW that I needed to do a better job of networking, but I was always turned off by it. The idea of an "informational interview" seemed so stilted and uncomfortable for me. It felt like using people. Once I had a job, I was really focused on that job and that company and I didn't really have much of a life outside of the two separate spheres of job and family.

Now partly, I have changed. But I also think the social media tools we have today make a huge difference in our ability to maintain casual relationships and develop new ones. It is not about substituting digital relationships for real ones--it is about the ease with which we can stay connected to our real relationships with people and start new ones.

There are many, many cups of coffee in my future with so many great people to meet and talk with! No awkward phone calls and attempts to cold-call into companies, get around the gatekeepers, then spew a quick elevator pitch to arrange an inconvenient interview where you pretend like you are not just looking for a job. My life is out there...on this site, on my LinkedIn profile, and in the public timeline of my twitter ramblings. We are all so much more transparent now that genuineness and authenticity can be a way of life, not something we turn on during the job hunt.

My social media strategy is simply to make as many people in the world aware of who I am and what I can do. It's fun--as much fun as possible for a confirmed INTJ personality type like me--to be "out there" like this dedicated to the challenge of meeting people and stretching myself. I feel like I gain something with every person I meet and every old acquaintance I reconnect with--even if they have no connection to any job I might ever want. But of course the reality is ultimately practical and urgent...to land a position or launch my consulting business and cover the health care and mortgage. But I feel I have awakened an optimism and extroversion I did not know I was capable of and hope I will look back on this challenge as a great "kick in the pants" to take myself to the next level...