How To Use Web 2.0 To Get Ahead

I had the pleasure of speaking with two good friends today at Texas State's Mass Communication Week 2008. (See Mass Communications Week at Texas State Adds Web 2.0 to Schedule post)

For my portion of the talk I spoke to students and shared with them keys to successfully making sure that hiring managers take notice of them in our Web 2.0 world. It's important to know that as the web continues to grow and the wealth of information expands exponentially that they use the skills they're developing and their natural inquisitiveness.

You can watch the recorded podcast here: Web 2.0. (apologies up front - not great audio or video - promise the next one will be 100% better)

And download the slide presentation here: slideshare

And finally check out the Texas State Mass Communications site for a brief documentation of the entire presentation.

Sure, I Can Help

So many folks that I speak with seem to be amazed at how and why I connect in the social networking world of places like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Plurk. Often times they get the fact that one of the hats I wear is that of a recruiter and I simply don't know where my next great hire may be lurking. They understand I want to be ready and have figured out that networking is a means to an end.

This week, however, I think I have had a chance to really make one of my connections become real in a different sense.

Through my connections I’ve made on Twitter and face-to-face connections I met at SXSW interactive earlier this year, I received a desperate call earlier this week from Jane Quiqley, one of our past Friday Morning Live speakers at Bulldog Solutions, asking if I could go and help “run” an event here in Austin that’s being broadcast to another convention in San Francisco tomorrow.

Two conferences: http://www.netrootsnation.org/ and http://www.blogher.com/blogher_conference/conf

and one of my coworkers and I will be there to make sure they connect via http://www.oovoo.com/.

This is the panel in particular: http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/867

And today’s New York Times article on the event: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/politics/16web-seelye.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I think it’s pretty nifty that some of my online connections feel good enough about me that they trust me and our team to help them when they're in a pinch. Good stuff.