Last week, I gave a presentation on the topic of being a better change agent as part of the Walk the Talk Milwaukee conference. I did this personally rather than professionally, although I often see the many challenges to change in my job helping marketing leaders adopt and execute customer experience initiatives.

I read a sobering article last week about how technology is slowly eating away at midpay jobs--the kind of employment that furnishes a middle-class lifestyle. The AP's "Holy Hal! A Robot Stole My Job" notes that "In the United States, half the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that pay middle-class wages... but only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended in June 2009 are in midpay industries. Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries."

What is happening to those middle class jobs? Says the AP, "They're being obliterated by technology."

The article reminded me of another I read in 2011, "Why Software Is Eating The World." It was written by Marc Andreessen, the visionary who co-developed the first widely used web browser and founded Netscape. He saw a technology-filled future with plenty of opportunity and jobs. Andreessen said we are "in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift," that made him "optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies."

So, whose future is correct? The AP's dystopian future or Andreessen's rosy one? Perhaps both--it may be a sad reality that economies can thrive by many measures while large numbers of citizens remain unemployed or find themselves shifted to lower-wage jobs. Just look at last week's financial news--the S&P 500 rose above 1500 for the first time in four years, and  unemployment claims also fell to a five-year low, but the overall unemployment rate remains more than 50% higher than at the beginning of the Great Recession and more than double what the US experienced during the roaring economy of 2000. Meanwhile, median household income after inflation fell to a level 8% lower than in 2007, and the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of Americans grew, with income for the top fifth of American households rising by 1.6% last year compared to declines for households in the middle.

Source: CNX.org based on US Census Bureau Data

Many forces are altering our world, and technology is at the center of them. In fact, this has been the case for at least the last 150 years. In the mid-Nineteenth Century, 90% of Americans worked in agriculture and related fields, and today, that figure is only around four percent. In 1900, only 5% of the nation's factories used electricity to power machines and just 10% of its homes had electricity--a century later, electricity was universal for both homes and manufacturing. As technology changed the way we worked, it also effected the way we lived. In 1800, over 90% of us lived in rural areas; today, around 80% of us live within metropolitan areas. Technology altering how we live, work and earn money is not new, but there are some profound shifts underway today.

Fritz Lang's--or Marc Andreessen's-- vision for workers' future?

When I first read Andreessen's optimistic article, I feared he overlooked the way his software revolution was creating two very different classes of employee; in fact, his article brought to mind a vision from Fritz Lang's striking 1927 film, Metropolis, where the managers live luxuriously above ground while the workers toil in horrifying conditions beneath the surface of the planet.

Andreessen does not seem to mind--or at least does not have an answer for--the duality his technology creates. He notes, "Many people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution... (They) will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again." Too bad, so sad, Marc?

The recent AP article notes that technology in the workplace has not been a zero sum game--even in just the last few years, tech has created winners and losers. "Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index reported one-third more profit the past year than they earned the year before the Great Recession. They've also expanded their businesses, but total employment... has declined by a half-million." The winners of the economic shifts of the past six years have been stockholders and tech employees while many others are losing out.

For an example of how technology has changed an industry look at Amazon, which Andreessen praised for evolving "while Borders was thrashing in the throes of impending bankruptcy." Amazon is one of the greatest success stories of the past two decades, but its success did not come merely by embracing new distribution methods but also by eliminating costly, wage-earning, benefits-demanding workers. Borders is gone, leaving 20,000 local retail employees without jobs, and more than 1,000 independent bookstores closed from 2000 through 2007, leaving about 10,600 unemployed. Meanwhile, printing employment has decreased a whopping 23.5% in just five years, and that drop is bound to accelerate in the next few years thanks to the adoption of new tablet hardware--IDC forecasts worldwide tablet shipments will be 40% higher in 2013 than in 2012 and will more than double last year's volume by 2016.

The employment shifts are not just limited to Amazon and books, of course. Look at Netflix, which employees 2,400 people but has almost single-handedly put 7,000 video rental stores out of business and forced Blockbuster to decrease its workforce from a peak of 60,000 in 2004 to little more than 4,000 today. Or Pixar, a company whose creative output I revere, but which has also replaced scores of animation workers with more powerful, flexible and efficient animation technology. Or online photo distribution sites that replace photo process workers. Or digital music systems that replace those employed in CD production, distribution and retail.

Computers may even replace those jobs you might have thought safe in our digital world. Did you watch IBM's Watson beat Jeopardy's two biggest all-time winners? How might organizations put that same sort of artificial intelligence and computing power to work? Robot journalists? Robot soldiers? Robot investment managers?

What about the jobs of the 2.3 million people in the US employed as customer service representatives? IBM notes that "one of the first real-world applications of Watson’s technology" will be in customer service, and an IBM CTO dares us to "Imagine if you had a system where you just called Watson, asked a question, and you get the answer in real time." What I imagine is 2.3 million more people losing their jobs, many shifting from middle-class jobs to something less.

Even legal professionals are seeing a shift. The New York Times draws a striking comparison in a recent article: In 1978, legal discovery for the five television studios entangled in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit cost $2.2 million to have lawyers and paralegals examine six million documents. Last year, a new e-discovery service helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000. 01001111 01100010 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110! (That stands for "Objection!" in binary code.)

It's not that technology replaces jobs, it simply tends to outplace people to lower paying ones. Notes David H. Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Over the long run we find things for people to do... but does changing technology always lead to better jobs? The answer is no.”

So are many of us doomed to end up out of work or under-employed as workers maintaining high-efficiency robots and computers? I think that is up to us in large part, because we do have a weapon at our disposal: A deep, ongoing commitment to learning.

The idea that education in our teens and 20s will prepare us for lifelong employment is as dead as, well, Borders book stores. John Dewey, an education reformer a century ago, recognized this well when he said, "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

How many of us are using today the things we learned in school? Heck, how many of us over 35 are using the same skills that propelled our careers just 10 years ago? And while technology may be increasing the speed of obsolescence and the need for constant learning, even tech jobs are not immune. In fact, the commitment that technology workers have to maintaining their own skills has more to do with their relevance and employment today than the fact they have dusty certificates attesting to their knowledge of COBOL, NetWare, ColdFusion or C++.

Software and hardware can replace repetitive tasks; they can disintermediate distribution channels; they can replace the jobs of people who search, compile, compute and report data and numbers; and they may someday answer our questions when we use customer service channels. But software cannot think--at least not yet. (I will leave for others to consider the potential societal and employment implications of technological singularity--a theoretical point when computers surpass human cognitive capabilities--which some predict could come two to four decades hence.)

Software and hardware can replace humans in some tasks, but not all. They cannot inspire others, envision the future, be creative, entertain or apply judgment. A computer may be able to do what a customer service rep or paralegal does, but no amount of hardware or software will ever accomplish what Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos or even, for that matter, Marc Andreessen have. Steve Jobs, who perhaps has done more to advance technology in our lives than anyone in generations, still recognized the vital importance of good people: "The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can."

Do you incite curiosity in others? Do you want to change the world? Are you committed to learning every year, every week and every day? Can you discuss the changes that occurred in 2012 within your industry at the same length you can the 2012 record of your favorite sports team or last season's outcome of your favorite reality TV program? My guess is that today, more Americans can name a greater number of people Taylor Swift has dated than they can thought leaders in their own industry. In his 2005 best-seller, "The World Is Flat," Thomas Friedman notes, "In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears -- and that is our problem."

Here are some simple tips on how you can commit to regular, ongoing learning and keep the robots at bay:

• Every single weekday, find something professionally pertinent to post as a LinkedIn Update--a news story, interview, survey, infographic or research report. If you have not found something to post today, then your work is not yet done for the day. (This habit not only helps you stay on top of news in your profession but also elevates your reputation among your peers. Take that, robots!)
    
• Visit LinkedIn every day as a news source. You can find a lot of interesting web sites and blogs to which to subscribe, and sites for professional associations are also particularly good for career oriented news and information, but many overlook one of the best professional information sites around--LinkedIn. The company has been busy improving the discovery of content with LinkedIn Today and new Original Content, and while many of the LinkedIn communities can be spammy, you can also find terrific, well-managed communities to join.
   
• Schedule non-work time for career learning. If you can make time for "appointment TV," then make an appointment with your career outside of work hours. Once or twice a week, schedule time on your calendar to read. If you focus your research on where you want your career to take you in two or three years, this habit will help you get there.
    
• Don't overlook books. I'll admit I can be guilty of this one. In our mile-a-minute culture, it can seem that today's blog post is more relevant than a book published last year, much less last decade. While books may not be a source of the most recent case studies, great books do more than just furnish fresh stories--they can inspire new ways of thinking. For example, Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff may be several years old, but its approach to getting social media right is still as solid as ever. Find out what your boss or others in your company are reading, or ask them for a book recommendation--this can provide good reading and good professional bonding. Better yet, seek out or start a professional book club where you work--that is something no robot will ever do.
   
• Create a professional Twitter list and follow some industry leaders on Facebook. Twitter is fun and informative, but its damn noisy. I long ago stopped paying attention to my tweet stream and instead focus on lists. Create or subscribe to a Twitter list of some of the best thinkers, research firms, professional associations and publications in your industry and check it daily. Don't forget Facebook, which has been making inroads to the professional networking space. Whereas two years ago almost none of my professional networking occurred on Facebook, today I'd estimate a third does. Instead of friending people you do not know, follow them, instead.
    
• Write a blog. I made this recommendation in a recent blog post, so I won't repeat myself here except to say that consuming news and information is helpful, but it is much, much more powerful and beneficial for you to turn that into your own ideas, insights and recommendations. 

You and I cannot change the course of the world or alter how technology will impact the lives and wages of workers, but we can change our own course. If we are hurt by the fact we fail to keep our knowledge, skills and abilities current, that is not the fault of our employer's training programs, bosses, government agencies or our education system; the fault is entirely our own.

Thomas Friedman's book popularized an African proverb appropriate to bring this blog post to a close:

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.”

The robots are waking. They have already killed slower gazelles. And they are getting faster every day.

Start running!
 

The following is based on a blog post I wrote a year ago, but it seems worth revisiting on New Year's Day. I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions--after all, why not work to improve yourself every day of the year rather than just on January 1?--but I'd like to propose a resolution that can improve your 2013 both personally and professionally: Write. Religiously. Every week. Start now.

You can launch a blog today. It is easy to do on Wordpress or Blogger. Beware, because the few minutes you take to launch a blog will commit you to dozens or hundreds of hours in 2013 to develop content and engage with others, but that's the whole idea, isn't it? (If, for now, you lack the confidence to share your ideas and observations with the world, start by writing for yourself.)  

For me, writing was not an easy habit at first, but now it has become so essential that when I have trouble finding time to write, I become uneasy. The ideas start piling up. I can actually begin to lose sleep because I lay in bed composing in my mind the blog posts I am not producing for my blog. It is not rare for me to wake up with a developed line of thought, head directly to my PC and furiously type before I lose the idea and perspective. Sometimes those ideas stand up but other times they melt in the morning light.

Do I sound like an addict? Perhaps, but there are worse things than being addicted to a habit that leaves one empowered, educated and improved. I have experienced strong and demonstrable benefits because of my work on Experience: The Blog. Here are the ways you might also benefit by making a commitment to write regularly:
  

• Reaffirm and strengthen the ideas you bring into the world: The process of blogging forces me to take an idea that I am confident is sound and discover the holes--and trust me, some of your strongest beliefs can begin to look awfully shaky as you convert a string of ideas into a cohesive and persuasive argument. As I compose a blog post to convince others of my perspective, I must first convince myself. I do this by filling in the blanks, taking time to analyze and study, and finding third-party data and information that substantiate my arguments. Once the blog post is fully baked, it not only becomes a piece of content for my readers but also a viewpoint I can call upon in meetings, when I am presenting or as I develop strategies on the job.
   
• Develop a point of view: We recognize that brands are strengthened not when they are all things to all people but when they focus on one meaningful perspective for one meaningful audience. In the same way, writing can help you to focus your thinking in a way that develops your personal brand. When you blog for others, you begin to think about who it is you want to read your content and what you want them to think and do. My blog and my audience force a discipline in the things I read, research and think, and this has paid dividends by sharpening my reputation, skills and point of view.
   
• Improve your writing: This benefit is obvious: the more you write, the better you become. I hesitate to say this because you may be thinking, "But Augie, you suffer from run-on sentences, passive voice and just misused the colon in the last sentence." All may be true, but do not let your fear of grammar prevent you from improving your grammar. Today, I can look back at my early blog posts and easily recognize that my writing and proofreading have improved. Any embarrassment I may feel about the lesser quality of my writing four years ago is more than compensated by the realization I would still be stuck at that level had I not started and committed to my blog. If you lack confidence in your composition or proofreading skills, ask a friend or peer to review your blog posts before you publish.
   
• Build a network around ideas: The world is full of curators; millions of Twitterers share links to interesting articles and blog posts. Curating is valuable service, to be sure, but without creators, there would be nothing for curators to curate. At this stage in social media development, it is no longer easy to develop a following merely by curating--too many people share too many of the same links--but the world always needs more creators. Creators are the people who stop (or decrease) social media from merely being an echo chamber, and creators also earn the most attention. There is no more powerful way to be recognized and build an engaged network than by giving others content and ideas they may consider and share.
   
• Create your own database of news and statistics: Ever have the experience of vaguely recalling an interesting bit of data or news but being unable to locate the content when you need it? Blogging is a great way to create your own personal database of the information you want to find again in the future. When I find interesting data or a pertinent case study, I write about and link to it, and that means I can always find this information by returning to my own blog. Take my last blog post, "Where Social Media Will Grow in 2013 (and Where it Won't)"; that one blog post contains more than 40 links; as a result, I will never have to waste time searching for the American Express study that found people tell 15 friends and family about positive brand experiences but 24 people about negative ones.  

earn  verb ərn\:  to receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered (Source: Merriam-Webster)

I've been engaged today in a running dialog on Twitter, my blog and Social Media Today about why 20-something social natives are not better suited than older people to lead social media. The thing that frustrates me most of all is not the lack of self-awareness of young adults; after all, we've all been there, and today's Millennials are no better or worse than Boomers or Gen Xers in their 20s. Instead, what annoys me is that so many people think social media offers some sort of shortcut--a way to bypass time and hard work for their careers or their brands. Social may change a lot, but it doesn't change what really matters, and this means there are no shortcuts to earning success.

Relationships are not formed, value is not created and skills are not honed without time, investment and effort. Getting someone to have a true relationship with your brand is not accomplished with the click of a "Like" button, and attaining positions of leadership within the corporate world does not happen because you  tweet constantly and have a cell phone surgically attached to your hand. Facebook, Twitter and other social tools may change how we manage our careers and brands, but they don't change what is required to succeed.

I've long railed on my blog against brands that think they can buy fans with sweepstakes and social game giveaways. We've seen story after story of brands accumulating hundreds of thousands of fans using these methods, but have these brands really succeeded at anything? They've gained a Facebook "fan," but have they gained a loyal customer or an advocate? These brands believe they've acquired a prospect, but with little to no affinity and low EdgeRank, this connection is as thin and valueless as a purchased email address. This isn't a relationship--it's a mockery of one--because relationships take time, effort, mutual interest and shared values. The brands that are truly succeeding in social media are not the ones taking shortcuts but the ones that stand for something, commit to the customer and work hard to earn a lasting relationship.

The same is true for social media leaders. Some young people think they own the market on social leadership because they've grown up with social media. By this logic, Steve Jobs, a man who did not grow up with mobile tech, should never have been able to relate to the way young people use tablets and cell phones. How could Walt Disney, a man who was in his 30s when television reached mass adoption, have succeeded at creating entertainment for children of the TV era? Dr. Dre, who turned eighteen when Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band topped the charts, still produces music relevant to young people year after year. And let's not forget people like Brian Solis, Scott Monty and Frank Eliason, recognized leaders in social media, despite the fact Facebook launched after they were 30 years old. 

Beyond the gaping holes in this 20-something logic lies the same sense that social media can be a shortcut. Why should young professionals have to put in years of hard work, prove themselves, earn their way up the corporate ladder, gain experience managing budgets and people, and validate their judgment in ever larger and riskier programs when, you know, they all tweet and post? They're social and that counts for something, doesn't it?

Social media and social business are not shortcuts. They do not make earning loyal customers or earning job promotions any easier (although failing to use social media appropriately may make both more difficult). They operative term here is "earn." You earn these things; you don't just get them because you are merely present in social media and have a Klout score.

Later this week, the Olympics will begin, and two thousand athletes will compete for 302 gold medals. A billion children run, jump and swim, yet only 302 gold medals will be awarded. It takes more than just showing up to be the best. It takes hard work. It is earned.

Over on NextGen Journal, a young woman named Cathryn Sloane has kicked up a lot of dialog with a blog post entitled, "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25." In it, she complains about companies that post social media job openings "looking for five to ten years of direct experience" and asserts that "the candidates who are in fact best suited for the position actually aren’t old enough to have that much experience."

I was going to respond to Ms. Sloane but then I realized I already had. Three years ago. When she was a sophomore in college.

In July 2009, I wrote a blog post about a social media blunder caused by an intern, and I urged companies to consider the importance of social media and the need for mature, experienced leadership. I was going to edit my old blog post to update it just a bit, and then I realized I didn't need to do so. While the social media world has matured in the intervening years, the need for true leadership and not just social media familiarity (which Ms. Sloane fails to recognize are not mutually exclusive) has not changed. In fact, it has increased.

So here is my response to Ms. Sloane, written three years before she wrote her her own blog post:

Caveat Emptor: Do You Know Enough to Buy or Hire Social Media Expertise?

The Los Angeles Times today published an article, "Employers are Liking -- and Hiring -- Social Media Workers," that included a couple of comments from me. The gist of the article is that the demand for social media professionals is growing (shocking!), and along with it so are the demands of those jobs.

As I speak with peers online and at conferences, there can be a sense that our profession isn't taken seriously at every organization. For every Dell, IBM, PepsiCo, Best Buy and (my employer) USAA where social media is recognized as a compelling strategic advantage, there are a lot of companies where social media is treated as, well, fluffy.

It's easy to blame the lack of stature that social media has within some organizations on conservative (and typically older) senior leaders who may have little to no personal experience with social media, but is it too easy to lay the blame there? Might social media pros themselves be part of the problem? That question stuck in my head as I read this statement from the LA Times article, furnished by a person with the title executive director of search engine optimization and social media programming: "I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I tell people what I do for a living."

It is appalling to me that someone employed in the most significant evolution in business and communications since the advent of the web would utter those words. If he is embarrassed to tell his friends about his job, how must he fare promoting his ideas to the decision makers at his firm?

Social media is becoming too vital for companies to take lightly. If social media professionals contribute to this underestimation by subverting their own authority, they do harm not just to their careers but also to their employers' competitiveness, brand awareness, reputation and profitability.

Do you have any bad habits? Here are four ways corporate social media pros may damage their opportunities and influence:

1. You have a cutesy job title: It seems gurus, wizards and ninjas are thankfully on the wane, but if you're still clinging to a job title more appropriate for a Dungeons and Dragons board than a boardroom, it's time to get new business cards--your job title isn't earning you respect among your serious peers. Unless the CFO in your firm is called the "Money Wizard" and the CIO is "the Ninja of Electronic Wonders," talk to your boss and claim a proper title that includes words such as "specialist," "manager," "director" or "vice president."
     
2. You hype rather than educate: Are you guilty of eagerly regaling peers with how Dell Outlet earned $6.5 million selling products via its Twitter account? That old and tired case study is great if the company you work at sells refurbished consumer electronics, but it means absolutely nothing if you're in the travel, pharmaceutical, auto or financial service industry. Too many social media pros are quick to promote the latest social media case study without considering whether the industry or the strategy is pertinent to their firms. Your peers are likely hungry for news about what your competitors are doing in social media, but every irrelevant example shared becomes more noise and feeds a suspicion harbored by some of your associates that social isn't as pertinent in your industry as in others.
     
3. You measure success by fans, friends and tweets: While metrics such as your Facebook fan count and number of retweets are useful for tracking your tactics, they are meaningless to most of your peers. The fact you have tens of thousands of fans on Facebook means little when the number of interactions on your posts (likes, comments and shares) number in the mere hundreds. Most organizations get tremendously more emails and phone calls than they do tweets and posts, which can reinforce the sense some have that social media hasn't yet scaled sufficiently to be vital. That perception is incorrect, of course, because it ignores the multiplier effect of public social communications and consumers' social graphs. Social media professionals must not rely only on measures of engagement but look for ways of tracking leads, inbound clicks, conversions, awareness, and other measures that communicate business results to decision makers.
     
4. You focus only on the positive: It's easy to get excited about the opportunities in social media, but smart professionals also define risks, divulge them widely, and work to mitigate the potential costs. I've met social media workers who are hesitant to talk about the risks, afraid their bosses will find it easier to pull the plug rather than maintain a Facebook fan page where activists and detractors might shame the organization. Avoiding or minimizing the compliance, legal and reputation risks is precisely the wrong approach. Your peers may not know the specific risks in social media, but they know the risks are there; you earn trust by preparing and protecting your employer rather than dismissing those risks.
    

The LA Times article was difficult for me to read. I know too many bright and serious professionals in this space to read about people who "stumbled into" their social media careers and landed a job "because I'm young, and people assume you know what you're doing."

Social media is called Web 2.0, but I think it's time for Social media 2.0. Social media 1.0 was about marketing, promoting, tweeting, and posting; social media 2.0 is about driving business results and adapting to new social business models. It can be enough of an uphill battle getting traditionalists in your organization to understand the importance of social media--be cautious not to make that climb steeper with bad habits that undermine your own experience, authority and abilities.

Yesterday, I became "that guy."  I'm an experienced social media professional, know the dangers of mistaking personal and professional accounts, and had just this week discussed with my team ways to diminish the risks of mixing up accounts when posting to social media sites. And yet, last night I made the classic social media blunder: Thinking I was on my personal Facebook page, I accidentally made a status update that resulted in my employer, USAA, broadcasting an opinion of American Idol's final duo.

It's not that our brand isn't personal or doesn't have personality in social media; in fact, it's not outside the range of possibility that the community managers on my team might decide to start a conversation about American Idol with our members on Facebook. But, that should be a carefully considered post and not something done carelessly.

I rapidly deleted my post, but not before it garnered some "likes" and a few comments, both positive and negative. Then, moments later, someone added a comment to the USAA wall asking if a Facebook administrator had just mistakenly posted a personal thought to the corporate fan page. Guilty! I fessed up (with my real name) and apologized. I got some nice supporting comments (since our members are the best and are willing to forgive), and life went on.

I'm ashamed and asked my community managers to (literally) slap my hands with a ruler, but they didn't because they're the best and are also willing to forgive. But, I learned a couple lessons worth sharing:

• Have a personal filter:  The fact you are responsible for a company's social media profile doesn't mean everything you say personally has to reflect the brand's personality, but you must consider the implications of your posts. First, once you are officially associated with a brand, anything you say in your Twitter or other social media streams can reflect upon your employer. Plus, there's always the chance you pull an Augie and mix your personal thoughts into the company's channel.
  
  My mistake could've been the stuff of headlines--the reason you're reading about my mistake here on my personal blog rather than on ABCNews.com is that the tone and content of my erroneous update were mildly, not wildly, off the mark for my employer's fan page. This is because I have a personal filter. I strive to keep things positive in my social media interactions, so even when I post something negative ("I liked American Idol better before it became Country Idol..."), I attempt to include an equal portion of positivity ("...but both of the finalists earned their way here with hard work.")  If you set a personal social media filter and avoid criticizing entire cities, dropping an F-bomb, or mocking a news organization for blathering, you diminish the risks to both your employer and to you.
• Keep them separated:  With apologies to The Offspring, you gotta keep 'em separated--your personal and professional social media tools, that is.  For Twitter management, it is too easy to set up both your personal and professional accounts in a single Twitter client such as HootSuite or Tweetdeck. Doing so is a recipe for danger. Use different Twitter clients for different purposes, and you'll greatly reduce the risk.
  
  Unfortunately. Facebook doesn't easily allow for that sort of separation. If you are the admin for a page, you will post as that page when on the fan page and will post as an individual elsewhere. Since your wall looks a lot like your company's wall, it is easy to fail to notice when you're on one page rather than another, resulting in errant status updates.  One solution is to use a third-party Facebook management tool (which is what we do at USAA), but most administrators still check their fan page in a browser, and therein lies the danger. There isn't much of a solution other than taking care (more than I did), but Facebook could certainly help matters by making your posting state more evident and controllable.

My infraction was minor and the repercussions negligible; I get to keep my job. You may not be so lucky--if you say the wrong thing in the wrong channel, you wouldn't be the first person to lose your job over a seemingly simple mistake. Protect yourself by reconsidering the personal filters and standards you bring to your social media interactions, and sever your personal and professional accounts as much as possible. Doing so could protect your company's reputation--and your job!

For the past 15 months, this blog has been dormant.  Since November 2009, I had the extraordinarily luck to be part of Forrester covering social media for interactive marketing professionals, and you'll find my 89 blog posts from this period on the Forrester blog.

As I move into the next stage of my career, I am playing Dr. Henry Frankenstein (as the character was called in the classic 1931 film version of the famous story) and reanimating the lifeless corpse of my original blog.  It's... alive!



In the past year since I last posted here, social media has gone from nascent to mainstream, from buzzworthy to newsworthy and from experiment to necessity.  And while many companies have launched their Twitter profiles and Facebook fan pages with a self-congratulatory sense of having accomplished the feat of becoming social, this roller coaster is just getting started.

In 2021, the social media of 2011 will look as crude and stiff as the websites of  2001 look to us today.  Check out the comparisons below, consider the pace of change the past two years and then envision the disruptions we'll experience in the coming decade. Those experiences will be the focus of Experience: The Blog.  I look forward to the many interesting and challenging discussions to be had.

Several months ago I wrote, "Social Media and the Job Interview You Don't Know You're Having ," an article about how your Social Media activities may say more to a recruiter than your resume.

If a potential employer Googles you or reads your Facebook or Twitter chatter, what will they learn of you? In Social Media, are you professional, inquisitive, informed, and smart? In addition to letting your personality shine through, do you post links to business articles and blogs? Do you demonstrate any passion for your profession or only for sports, TV, music, and socializing?

That article got some reaction from friends and peers, some in support and some who felt it unfair that employers would use a candidate's social meanderings--intended for friends and recreation--to make professional judgments. I found the feedback interesting, but in the end this really isn't a topic of opinion but of fact. Employers are judging candidates based on what they find online, and why shouldn't they? Selecting the right employee is critical, the cost of recruiting failures is high, and there's so much to learn about people on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and elsewhere.

My earlier post came to mind reading "My Blog Ate My Career" on the Boston Globe's site, Boston.com. Linda Keenan writes, "I'm perfectly qualified for a job -- just don't look me up online." The former CNN head writer and senior producer notes, "The fact is: I wouldn't hire me either. Further, I'm not sure I'd let me in the PTA, or even near my kid. An employer typically looks for someone trustworthy, helpful, courteous. My attributes, etched forever in the digital record, read like a perversion of the Boy Scout Law." Among the many offenses Linda found when she took a hard look at her own Social Media identity included her declaration that her "toddler (is) more mature" than some news anchors with whom she worked.

Another recent incident reminded me that, even though people tend to treat Social Media like some sort of private/public diary, it's still a communication medium. That means it involves a sender, a receiver, and a message--and it isn't the sender's intent that matters but the receiver's understanding.

As recounted by NPR, a "mommy blogger" who Twitters under the nickname Thordora posted a Tweet someone found alarming: "If I smother my 3 year old, who will NOT GO TO F****** SLEEP, is it REALLY a crime?" One of her followers, concerned for the wellbeing of the children, called the police and a visit to Thordora's home resulted. The Twitterer was indignant--indignant!--that someone would demonstrate such care for the safety of her children and call the cops. The emotions continued to play out on Twitter, were Thordora wrote, "Don't do any venting in public. Don't network. Don't show anything LESS than perfect bliss…" while others responded, "I would rather see someone err on the side of caution than to turn a deaf ear on what could be a cry for help."

This incident struck me as another powerful reminder that Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Media tools haven't rewritten the rules of communication. The purpose of speaking isn't to make noise but to deliver a message that is heard and understood; the purpose of Social Media musings isn't to create a personal journal but to have others know you, gain an understanding of your singularity, and learn your opinions and tastes.

Choosing to communicate in Social Media doesn't absolve you of the obligation to consider how others will construe your messages, because like it or not, every listener in every communication medium retains the innate human right to interpret, judge, evaluate, catalog, retain, and act upon what he or she hears, reads, and feels.

Don't like it? Want to compare your coworkers to infants or fantasize about smothering your children? Delete your Facebook account and buy a diary.

Here's a challenge to those of you who care (or fear) what a future potential employer might think of you and your Social Media persona: Find an acquaintance--someone who knows and can be honest with you--and ask them to check out your Twitter feed or Facebook profile. Have them play the role of a recruiter and share their assessment of what they learn and how they interpret the online you.

If you become concerned about the identity you're creating online, it may be time to consider different accounts for different purposes. Some folks are creating personal Twitter and Facebook accounts for friends and different ones for professional networking.

One of the big changes and improvements I expect we'll see in Social Media tools in the next year or two is an intuitive and easy way to manage different personas and communications to different groups of people, but for now--if you have any professional goals--it would be wise to consider not what your closest friends think of your status updates but what a recruiter might think.

When you interview for a job, you leave nothing to chance. You select the right outfit, get it dry cleaned, and show up looking your best. Your resume is printed on the finest of paper stock. You've considered and are prepared for the tough questions you're going to be asked (usually beginning with the phrase, "Tell me about a time when...")

But what about the interview you don't even know you're having? What if right this second, a potential employer is interviewing you and you're not even aware?

If that sounds absurd, then you've not considered what Social Media transparency means to the recruiting and candidate-selection process. We speak a lot about the impact of transparency to brands--that consumers know and share more, creating increased pressure on business to be honest and authentic. But how about when the shoe is on the other foot?

We all tend to be pretty casual in our Social Networks. My profile image on Facebook is of me holding a martini; a quick review of my last 20 Twitter posts show I had two misspellings; and I occasionally mention politics in my Twitter posts--it is election season, after all!

I would never walk into an interview holding a martini glass, share a resume with grammar errors, or talk politics with a hiring manager, so should I do these things in my Social Media interactions? There is no single answer to that; every individual will need to make that decision for themselves. It's easy to overlook, but the fact is our Social Media information isn't just accessible to the people who know us and can put that information into context; it's available to anyone for any purpose, including clients, bosses, coworkers, subordinates, prospects, friends, foes, and potential employers.

Is it "fair" for employers to seek out this information and use it for the purposes of hiring decisions? Before you answer that, ask yourself if it's "fair" that a single Comcast technician falling asleep in a consumer's home has become an embarrassment seen around the world by 1.3 million people on YouTube. As consumers, we are glad for the power and transparency of Social Media, but in the same way Social Media allows consumers to see past the marketing at the real company behind the ads, it also allows potential employers to see past your marketing at the real you behind the resume.

Fair or not, employers are gathering information about candidates from Social Networks. MarketingVox shares the results of a CareerBuilder.com nationwide survey of some 3,100 employers. The study found that 22% of hiring managers say they use social-networking sites to research job candidates, double the amount that said this in 2006.

So, what are they looking for? The number one area of concern, cited by 41 percent of survey participants, were candidates who posted information about their drinking or using drugs. (Perhaps I should replace my martini photo with a more professional image?) A close second concern was candidates posting provocative or inappropriate photographs or information. Other potential employment issues in Social Media include poor communication skills, bad-mouthing a previous company or fellow employees, and discriminatory remarks relating to race, gender, religion, etc. You can even get dinged for the screename you choose!

The information you share on Social Networks can hurt your employability. One-third (34 percent) of hiring managers reported they found content that caused them to dismiss a candidate from consideration. On the other hand, 24 percent of hiring managers who researched job candidates via social-networking sites say they found content that helped to solidify their decision to hire a candidate.

How professional is your Social Media image? Check out the article on MarketingVox and you may soon find yourself polishing your online profile and altering your Social Media behavior.

Note: I'm on vacation this week but worked a little ahead to keep the content flowing on this blog. If you comment, I won't be able to read and respond to your message until this weekend.