Techivity

I am going to reiterate this idea from a post last month because of something my wife just showed me.

In the modern age of social media, we are what we publish. If you apply for a job, its common practice to research you on the ‘net.  So, I give you the case of a girl, Jenny, who quit her job yesterday morning by emailing a series of photos to everyone in her company.

http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

Over 30k people know how Jenny quit her job, more to come, and when bloggers find out her last name, these series of photos could easily come up connected with her on a Google search.  So, when Jenny applies to her next job, this is what could easily come up when the HR manager checks her out on Google before bringing her in for an interview.

Not that Jenny is in the wrong.  Sexual harassment is a serious HR issue, and if she had a boss who yelled at her and made inappropriate remarks, she needed to deal with that, or quit.  The problem here isn’t that Jenny was wrong to quit; the issue is how she quit.  Granted its funny, but lets look at the impact on her career opportunities.

If you owned a firm and had somebody like this fellow Spencer managing it for you, would you want to know from an employee about their concerns directly?  Or would you rather read it on Facebook? As an HR manager, would you rather present a candidate who has a quiet, professional history to a hiring manager, or a HoPA who reacted bitterly and quit without notice in public forum?  Would you rather have a quiet level-headed broker working for you, or someone who reacts unprofessionally to unprofessional situations?

Here’s another note to think about; when you post something that someone else did online, you wield a great and terrible power over their life.  Jenny sent this to her office, which wasn’t well thought through, however, somebody in her office posted it online for her, which was simply cruel and may have affected Jenny’s career for years and years to come.

Remember that Star Wars Kid video?  Funny, yes.  In interviews that kid said the video haunted him for years and ruined his adolescent life…and somebody else posted that for him.

Again; with great power, comes great responsibility.  Having the power to post to the Internet and get the immediate attention of millions is great power.  If you use it irresponsibly, then, eventually, that is how you may be known…if you use it responsibly, it can have great impact on your life.

Next up, we will do a summary review of analytics, Facebook pages and marketing strategy, going over the posts for the past few months to put them in context before moving on to building traffic.