Develop a Strategy for Social Media

If you only think that social media is a playground for personal folly, think twice as the majority of employers use social media to evaluate potential and current employees. In addition, social media has become the premier method for professionals to promote themselves and enhance their career. This all necessitates having a professional persona using social media that you control. 

A persona is what you project about yourself. This is the person you want others to think you are.

Can you have more than one persona? Yes, we act this way all of the time. If you behave differently when you are with your relatives than with your friends than you are representing a different persona. People will judge you based on how you portray yourself.

Getting and maintaining a job requires the development of a professional persona that will represent the qualities employers are looking for.  It is not just about your skills and abilities, it is also about how well you ‘fit’ into the culture. Do you share the values of the organization?

Developing a persona that represents you professionally will help others to understand your values, ethics, and interests when looking for a job or advancing your career opportunities. The use of social media is the best environment for developing and maintaining this persona.  Will your persona change over time? Probably, that is why your persona should never be considered static. As with your life itself, it is something that needs to be maintained and not left to wallow.

Establishing a Persona Strategy is a way of recognizing and establishing what you want others to see you as. You can have different persona's, such as the one you may have for your family, another for your friends, and another for you work.  At the heart of it all is still you, who you are, but there will normally be a different perspective that each group needs to know and identify with.

Think about it as if looking in a mirror. Are you the same person you were five years ago? Probably not. What is different? Do you like it? What do you need to accept or change? This is how others see you.

This all comes with living socially.

The use of social media has increased the opportunity for individuals to share and engage with larger numbers of people. A way to build your communities. It also becomes a tool for self promotion and development. .

Social media is based on trust. If you want to build your network you have to be trusted. This provides a greater need to have a Professional Persona Strategy.  A strategy is a plan to obtain what you want to achieve. A Professional Persona Strategy is a plan to ensure that others will find what you want them to find as well as how you want to portray yourself.

Here are factors that should be considered in developing a Professional Persona with social media:

Your Name - consider if you want to use your full name, family name or use a professional title.

Handle - a single user name that represents your persona

Bio - what do want to say to others about who you are, what you can do, where you want to go.

Age, Gender, where you live, contact information, education - this is information that is publicly available, what and where do you want to share this needs to be identified

Picture - a picture is worth a thousand words. What do you want your profile picture to represent? what pictures do you want to display? what pictures do you NOT want to appear?

Interests & Activities - select the interests to share: sports, hobbies, political, educational, etc. How much and often do you want to share?

Social media goals - determine why you are using social media, what purpose will it serve, how often you will use it.

Social media use - determine what tools are to be used, how they are to be each used, and how frequently you will use them.

Social media success criteria - how will progress be measured and evaluated? what are you looking for as outcomes from using social media?

Isn’t it time that you started to take social media seriously? Isn’t it time for you to think about how you are using social media professionally? Before you do anything else, sit down and craft a strategy before you start building profiles, sharing, and engaging.

Goodbye Glass?

Google recently stopped manufacturing the Explorer version of Glass. Since I have had Glass Explorer for over a year this has prompted people to ask me about the status of Glass. As an active technology professional and educator there is not a simple answer.

The 'official' answer from Google is that Glass has been moved from Google X to a profit oriented division of the company. Basically, Glass is not going away. What was learned from the Glass Explorer program is being developed into a marketable product.

Glass Explorer was a concept rollout, not a product rollout. This was done through Google X, the research arm of Google. Developers and the public began to petition to 'get their hands' on this thing that Google was developing. As Google began to release, first to those invited and then, to the public it was clearly stated that this was an Explorer program. Glass Explorer was truly not ready as a consumer device.

There were and still are some major hurdles facing wearables that Google had to explore.

There was not a wearable operating system in the marketplace when Glass Explorer became available.  It was not clear how users should and would interact with a wearable device.  Google Explorer allowed Android to be investigated as a wearable platform. Cards and the use of voice had to be considered as part of the user interface.

Similar to the introduction of mobile/smartphone devices the type of data and the screen size for wearables is different.  Web pages are no longer a viable option. Even trying to reformat for a specific size would not work. All of the current web pages and services will have to be adjusted to provide for the use of more specific information that is served to meet specific inquiries. The introduction of the use of the Card as the display object allowed for a good display, but the web is not ready to identify and serve small pieces of data from its mass amounts of information.

Although voice inquiry and activation have been around for a couple of decades, it has not been an integral part of any operating system. The use of a keyboard, mouse, or touch to execute commands in a menu/hierarchical system has been the standard format. Voice tools such as Siri or Google Now are only an extension of the menu format. The more specific the question, the better the answer. Glass Explorer attempted to assess voice as an integral part of an operating system. Yet, it was being used in a hierarchical command process that was not user adaptable.

One of the limits of Glass Explorer was the perception of extending current technology without providing anything that was truly new technology.  Walking down the street one day, a man passed me talking on his phone. The man glanced up as he passed, then quickly stated incredulously into the phone, "I just passed someone that was wearing that internet on his face thing." When people asked what I could do with Glass Explorer, they would sum up what I was saying with, "Basically, it is a smartphone on your head." Glass Explorer was about creating a better experiential environment of current technology.

Wearables are hardware that allows for a better experiential environment. Glass Explorer was an opportunity for Google to discover how it can best serve the marketplace and make money with wearables. Google will have to take the time to examine its position in the wearables marketplace and the Internet of Things.

It remains to be understood exactly what will come next. My best guess is that Google will be focusing on its strength, which is software development.

Whatever happens next, I just hope I get another invite......

A Wink and a Smile #throughglass

Google Glass creates happy faces.

There are smiles whenever I wear Google Glass. There are stares and questioning looks, but most people break out into a smile as I pass by.  When the curious ask what I am wearing, the smiles become a happy face.

To demonstrate what Glass can do, I ask, "Can I take your picture?".  As they say "Yes", I wink to take the picture. This action brings on not only a smile, but an entire happy expression.

Hundreds of my photos show people caught in the process of discovering what Glass can do. The video contains some of these happy faces along with the appropriate music. Take a look and... Put On A Happy Face.

How do you say '@'?

What is the English word for @'?

Tweeting from Glass is a quick way to share the moment. No need to pull out a device and type a message. It can all be done with voice commands. However, I have not been successful in mentioning someone using the '@' symbol.

Hashtags work surprisingly well. Simply saying "hashtag frozen" will result in '#frozen'.

However when attempting to use '@', just saying "at discover MATC" results in 'at discover MATC' instead of '@discoverMATC'.

Also, saying "at symbol Sendiks" will result with 'at symbol Sendik's', instead of '@Sendiks'.

Had the same problem when I tried using "at sign Heritage Print" that resulted in "At sign Heritage Print", instead of '@HeritagePrint'.

'@' was created as representation for value or pricing of goods and services. Aside from commercial usage, the symbol was not widely used or understood until the development of Unix and internet in the 1970's. The symbol is widely used today for email address and Twitter.

Twitter uses '@' to 'mention' someone directly in a tweet.  '@' allows users to tag someone in a tweet. This tag allows for the tweet to be found when users are checking who has tagged them. '#' can be used for general words and terms, whereas '@' can be used to get a tweet noticed by those being tagged. It is also used when replying to another person or when wishing to get more people into a conversation.

This is all easy to do if you are using a keyboard, but there does not appear to be any consistently recognized word for '@' that is understood by voice recognition software with Glass or Google for English speakers.

Besides being called the 'at sign' or 'at symbol' in English there are several different ways of referring to '@': 'commercial at', 'atmark','asperand','ampersat'. These are all words that have appeared when I search the web for '@', but none of them have any specific claim to being recognized as '@'.

Interestingly other languages have given '@' different names. The French use arrobase and the Spanish use arroba. The Germans refer to it as the 'monkey tail', Affenschwanz, and the Russians refer to it as the 'dogs tail', sobaka. Since I am not fluent in any of these languages, I am not sure if these words will produce '@'.

The utility of Twitter is limited if one cannot mention others using '@' using voice recognition software. What appears to be the problem is that Google either recognizes a specific word or it attempts to interpret what is said. With '#', it will first spell out the word 'hashtag' after it is stated, but then convert to the symbol when the word has been recognized. Since 'at' is a common English preposition used in many contexts, Glass is not quickly recognizing the word as '@' needed to Tweet.  The solution resides on selecting a specific English word to represent '@'.

So, what word will be best used to say '@' in English and be recognized by Google voice recognition software?

How did my wife get Hoffed?

On April 1st, my wife received an Auto Hoffsome'd picture in her G+photos that she did not take, nor was tagged in. How did the picture arrive there?

The picture was taken at an event using my Google Glass. The picture was not shared with G+ or any other social media service. The original picture uploaded to my G+ photos that night while Glass was charging. A few days later, on April 1st, she received a notification about the Hoffed picture.

No harm done with the Auto Hoffsome photo as we both thought it was quite funny and appropriate for the event.

We were both dressed in traditional Bavarian clothing for a silent auction fund raiser for a German language school. Coincidentally, one of the auction items was a collection of David Hasselhoff memorabilia. Adding Hoff to the picture was in context with the theme and added to the fun we had at the event.

Some of the fun:

What is intriguing, is that my wife did not have a profile picture of herself for her account at the time, nor did I have pictures or reference her in my G+ accounts. Further adding to this mystery is that we have different last names.

How did G+ know that she was in the picture and find her account?

If anyone has an idea or the official word on how my wife got Hoffed, let me know.

Feed Me Product Information

Nutella is a staple in our household. Something I discovered on a business trip to Germany about thirty years ago. Like PB&J, Nutella is a quick hunger fix that goes great with graham crackers or any type of bread.

The US market for the product has been growing. As a result, major US brands have been attempting to grab some share of this growing market. As such, I am always inclined to buy the new product and test it out.

The other day I discovered that Hershey's came out with a competing product. There was an end cap in the supermarket that featured the Hershey product as well as Nutella. Almost as if it was a dare to compare.

I had not heard or seen of the Hershey product and was curious about why Hershey's thought their product would be better, however, no further information was available.

As I stood there looking at the product, with my Glass on, I realized it would be nice to be able to scan the barcode to obtain more information about the product.

Are packaged goods manufacturers or any consumer goods manufacturers considering using the barcodes to communicate not only with POS systems, but also with consumer devices?

Is anyone going to look at how to develop this with Glass?

Well, this will be one of the apps that I will definitely look into. Anyone want to help?

Glass + Frames = Iwear

It's been little over a week since prescriptions lenses were put in my Frames. A new experience of wearing Glass every day.

It has been a positive experience.

Beyond all the negative press about the appearance of Glass in public places, I have not had any negative response.

People are noticing. Everyone is looking.

As with all abnormalities, everyone acts a little differently when they notice Glass. Many are afraid to stare or ask questions. Some just stop in their tracks and ask if it is Glass or what is it that I am wearing. Others, quickly look away when I look at them, or try to appear that they do not notice.

What I do see are a lot of smiles.    

I smile back.

When I am meetings with co-workers it is fun to briefly demonstrate Glass. Amazing how quickly those that know me are able to forget and accept that I am wearing Glass.  They remember it is 'just Larry' they are dealing with.

This does not mean that people have reservations about me wearing Glass. The other day a colleague stopped me in the hallway to say, "Larry, I know that there are a lot of positive uses for Glass, but it still kind of 'creeps me out' a little."

As my colleague and I stood there and giggled about what was just shared, the president of the college walked by escorting a group of dignitaries. One of the people being escorted stopped in their tracks and asked what I was wearing. After a brief couple minutes of introductions and Glass demonstration all in the escorted group were smiling and enthused as to what they just experienced about Glass. My colleague just turned to me, smiled, and reminded me of the meeting we needed to be at in the next half hour as we parted company. Business as usual.

What I am learning about as I wear Glass, is that you have to provide a positive experience to others.

Polite, professional, and unafraid to positively engage others is the best way to wear Glass.

I wear Glass.