¿No has oido? ¡LinkedIn ahora es en Español! October 6, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : digital biographer, linkedin, online identity, search marketing ,Haven’t you heard? LinkedIn is now in Spanish!
A subtle little detail caught my eye on the right hand side of my LinkedIn profile this evening - a little global map, and the world ‘language with a dropdown icon to its right…
It’s a beta version of LinkedIn in Spanish. All I need now is for them to add Russian, and I’ll have to use all three of my languages in my profile.
Just searching LinkedIn’s blog, I see that this was announced in late July but it’s been kept fairly low on the radar for some reason. Naturally, it makes the interface easier to work with for those with Spanish, rather than English, as their primary language, but it also signals growing focus on developing LinkedIn in the Latin American market, where LinkedIn say they expect to double their user base by the end of this year.
Spanish is the second most-spoken native language in the world (500 million people), after only Mandarin Chinese, and is the third most-used language on the internet (behind English and Chinese).
Twellow adds more features to increase your online visibility October 1, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, authority, brand, googlicious, linkedin, microblogging, online identity, search marketing, social media ,Twellow, the ‘yellow pages for Twitter‘, has improved its utility with the ability to create your own biography entry.
As well as being able to claim your twitter profile, and classify yourself in up to 10 categories (although I’m in 14 for some reason), you can also add your own social media links to your profiles on Pownce, LinkedIn, Flickr, FriendFeed, etcetera - as well as creating a brief summary and what’s termed a ‘bio’ or biography entry.
The search facility in Twellow includes the data in your summary and pick ups keywords and links used there, and your biography information can also include basic HTML, so links and visual formatting can be added. The summary is indexed in search - the biography does not appear to be indexed yet.
Apart from being a great way to find people using Twitter with similar interests, and pinpointing interesting people to follow, categorized Twellow profiles are also becoming visible in Google and Yahoo searches. So I’d recommend making sure you claim your profile at Twellow and add your details and social links to ensure your online visibility and credibility stay high. It’s free, and there are over half a million people listed there, so it’s worth spending a few minutes to make sure you’re visible, coherent, and linked up here.
One in ten US College Admissions Officers checks social networks in admissions process. September 23, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, authority, brand, digital biographer, facebook, googlicious, online identity, search marketing, social media ,A Kaplan survey of 320 admissions officers from the United States’ “top colleges and universities” revealed that one out of ten admissions officers has visited an applicant’s social networking Web site as part of the admissions decision-making process.
It’s not all bad news, of course - 25% of those surveyed said that viewing social network content had a positive impact on their evaluation. However, a greater percentage (38 percent) report that applicants’ social networking sites have generally had a negative impact on their admissions evaluation.
“The social networking frontier is a bit like the Wild West for colleges and universities — everyone is trying to figure out how to navigate it,” said Jeff Olson, Executive Director of Research for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. “The vast majority of schools we surveyed said they have no official policies or guidelines in place regarding visiting applicants’ social networking web sites — nor are they considering plans to develop them.” For schools who reported having a policy, generally the policy is not to look at or factor these sites into the evaluation. One admissions officer reported, “Staff can visit them for narrowly defined reasons, but can’t go on a fishing expedition.”
Kaplan conducted similar surveys at business (9%), law (15%) and medical schools (14%), and it is interesting to note that there have been a whole series of ‘clean’ online-profile-building services appearing, which of course, are specifically designed for the college admissions process, and significantly, over a quarter of survey respondents (26 percent) say their schools subscribe to one or more of these sites.
Examples of these sites include Admish.com, Cappex.com, EdSoup.com and Zinch.com.
So it looks like college kids don’t have to worry too much about what material they place on Facebook or MySpace (yet) but they should certainly throw together a profile on a college admissions profile site to boost their chances of admission to their preferred schools. At the same time , it seems that there are a lot of institutions out there who need to draw up a policy of some sort (even if it’s a blanket ‘no online screening from social media’), otherwise they may lay themselves open to claims of bias or discrimination.
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More than one in five employers will screen your social media profiles before they decide on hiring you. September 16, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, authority, digital biographer, facebook, googlicious, online identity, social media, sound, streams ,Twenty-two percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research job candidates, up from 11 percent in 2006, according to a nationwide survey of more than 3,100 employers from CareerBuilder.com. An additional 9 per cent said they don’t currently use social networking sites to screen potential employees, but plan to start.
Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles, one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration. THAT IS MORE THAN ONE IN THREE.
Top areas for concern among these hiring managers included:
- 41% - information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% - provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 29% - poor communication skills
- 22% - screen name was unprofessional
- 19% - shared confidential information from previous employers
On the other hand, social networking profiles also can give job seekers an edge over the competition. Twenty-four percent of hiring managers who researched job candidates via social networking sites said they “found content that helped to solidify their decision to hire the candidate“.
Top factors that influenced their hiring decision included:
- 48% - candidate’s background supported their qualifications for the job
- 43% - candidate had great communication skills
- 36% - candidate’s site conveyed a professional image
- 31% - candidate had great references posted about them by others
- 24% - candidate’s profile was creative
So, if you’re aiming to be hired, you need to make sure your online profiles match the picture you want a potential employer to see, because there’s a greater than one in five chance that they will check out your profile online, and an even greater chance that if they see something they like there, that fact will help you to get the job you have applied for.
The careerbuilder site gives a number of fairly obvious tips to ensure you are viewed favourably, but I have a few more:
- Use online profiles to create positive information about yourself, and ask for recommendations or testimonials from others that can be placed on these profiles. LinkedIn is probably the best example where you can receive testimonials from work colleagues, associates and employers.
- Monitor your own name with a service such as Google Alerts - or if you are really serious about managing your reputation online, try Trackur - it has a 14-day free trial.
- invest in your own name as a domain name, especially if you have a common name. I own both davidpetherick.name and davidpetherick.com, for example. And add content and commentary there - preferably right in the heart of your area of expertise - but also as a place where you can show diverse aspects of your personality or interests.
The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 3,169 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions) and 8,785 employees (employed full-time; not self-employed) ages 18 and over between May 22 and June 13, 2008, respectively.
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Free Competition: Take 2 minutes to win a domain name. September 15, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : awards, corporate blogs, googlicious, online identity, search marketing ,This month, Certain Host are giving you the chance to win a free domain name!
All you need to do to have a chance of winning your very own .com or .co.uk domain name is to give the correct answer to the simple question below, and send us your name and email address (which will be only be used to notify you of the winner). Good luck!
If you can’t see the entry form here, please visit the competition entry page.
Now, it should be well known to you that Certain Host offer a free domain name with three of their most popular hosting packages, but, we’re just making sure, and spreading the world a little.
Remember - this competition closes on 30th September at 6pm Eastern Standard Time.
PS: If you need a clue with the answer to this question, try looking at the web site of a certain reliable small business web host.
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Social Media Management Fees, Authority Blogging and Calling yourself Names… September 10, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, authority, authors, brand, digital biographer, googlicious, online identity, search marketing, social media, Кибер-биограф ,Two terms have come to my attention in the last 24 hours. One was “Social Media Management Fees“, the other “Authority Blogging“.
Social Media Management Fees
Yes. The term makes sense, now that I’ve heard it.Mike Coulter of Digital Agency coined the term today, in a thoughtful blog exploring why what should be an invoice item adding significantly to the bottom line of numerous ad agencies, pr companies, digital agencies and general ‘new media’ outfits, isn’t.
I realise I’ve been charging customers Social Media Management Fees (SMMF) since 2006, but only now realised there was such a concise term to describe what I’m charging money for. I always hated ‘online reputation management’ because it always suggested spin and PR, and glossing over things - something I don’t, and won’t do for customers.
Blog Authority / Authority Blogging
I added the term ‘Authority’ to the list of functions for my company Clarocada in 2005. Clarocada Russia, Clarocada Emedia, which is now termed Clarocada Interactive, Clarocada Barcelona, and Clarocada Authority. I initially was aiming to help authors (those with authority, if you follow) to create a voice online, through blogs and social media, and to help them to promote their work to readers, and to perhaps gain other writing assignments.
I’d forgotten, of course, that authors are, in general, a complete pain in the butt to work with. (There are exceptions, but I am not one of them). So I moved more towards offering my services to those in business, who were idea-rich, but time-poor, in order to let them gain ‘Authority’. The term ‘Digital Biographer‘, which I was tentative about using up until it became the headline in a story on the BBC, has always been one that’s not entirely described ‘the full story’. If it’s good enough for BBC News, it’s certainly good enough for me.
I was also interested to note that in May 2007, Technorati coined the term ‘Authority’ to refer to the number of blogs linking to a site in their ‘Technorati Authority’ - so if 193 sites link to you, you have ‘higher authority’ than if, say, 6 sites link to you.
But it was when I read an article referred to by Chris Brogan yesterday, in his Google Reader Share List, where the term “Authority Blogger” was used to describe a service ‘to learn how to use a blog as a way for growing their profile, credibility and influence’. As I looked at the term, I realised this was what I should have called ‘Clarocada Authority’ three years back.
Never mind. A similar phrase did still appear in the description of the service for writers as ‘Blog Authority’.
Calling Names and Bad Language
It’s natural that as a new set of terms and services evolve, language evolves and new terms are created to describe them - some of which dates and is irrelevant very rapidly, and other elements of which becomes common usage. The term ‘new media’ is already looking a bit tired, but it was all the buzz around 2001. By the same token, the term ‘blog’ is far from universally understood even now, in September 2008. And don’t let’s get started on what ‘Web 2.0′ really means…
However, it’s nice to see that a term I’ve used in the past has come to roost in a niche it describes fairly precisely, and that others use the term with essentially the same meaning. As Mike Coulter put it - “I might be on to something.” An accurate way to describe the service I’m asking people to pay for is most definitely an example of good language!
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Sorry, I don’t do meetings. I do tweetings. September 5, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, authority, digital biographer, microblogging, online identity, search marketing, social media, Кибер-биограф ,“Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot masturbate” - Dave Barry
I don’t do meetings any more. I used to do a lot of meetings. But not any more.
The change from meeting to tweeting - where a series of brief exchanges (each a maximum of 140 characters) can make up the content - has been brought about by a variety of factors over the past 15 years or so - but here are the ten factors that I think are critical.
- IN GOOGLE TIME
I no longer have a phone book, business directories or yellow pages. Those were essential when I started my first corporation in 1993. But now, I use Google. As a result, I have less patience for slow ways of doing things - I am impatient. I demand speed, efficiency, and immediate results. - HOLA FONEROS
I have a laptop computer and a mobile phone, I can work from a cafe terrace in Banyalbufar just as easily as anywhere else. As a result, I don’t have the need to restrict myself to doing business with those who are within easy reach of where I live or work most of the time. - HOME OFFICE DRESS CODE
I don’t need to have an office in the city centre to get my work done - I can do it from my home office. As a result, I don’t need to spend time travelling, and so I use that saved time productively. I also find wearing a suit in my own kitchen a bit pointless, so feel there has to be a very good reason to dress up to go somewhere - and my carbon footprint’s lower. - MY ONLINE VISIBILITY
Whereas I used to have to push information out to people in brochures, newspaper interviews, in meetings, at trade shows, I now have online profiles at LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy, Facebook, Hyves, Flickr, Friendfeed, MyBloglog etc, and I have blogs and web sites that I can update easily in seconds. As a result, I don’t have to spend so much time introducing myself, and explaining what it is that I, or any of my enterprises provide - people find out about me before they meet me, or get to know me through following my activities online. People can meet me at airports because my photo is online. They can also decide whether they need to waste their time meeting me. - I HATE COFFEE
I don’t really like coffee any more. And I especially never liked paying £3 for a cup of it unless it was refilled all day and came with free wi-fi. As a result, when someone says - let’s have a chat over a coffee, I say “No. Let’s save the time and money, and spend five minutes now working out if we need to meet - and if so, what items on the agenda we can dispense with before we need to have a meeting”. - MEETINGS ARE GETTING SHORTER
I arranged a meeting in London (yes, I do still sometimes meet people) with guys coming from Amsterdam and from the USA without ever using a phone - and although we’d not met before, we have already shared dozens of pieces of information that made the business of the meeting last about ten minutes - and then we ordered some food and drinks. We then talked about other interesting stuff and new possibilities - not just ‘the business we need to discuss’. - CUT THE CHIT-CHAT
I can get to know people online by following their updates - or by looking at what they’ve said, or who they’ve been talking with, or who’s been talking about them - and so with this background, a lot of ‘chit-chat’ becomes unnecessary. As a result, I can filter out people, or filter them in. - YOU CAN DO THIS TOO
You are reading this blog. You can send me emails, you can send me stuff without a courier, you can clarify things in Skitch, you can speak on Skype for free, you can send an instant message or a twitter. But you can do this as suits your agenda - and not be dragged into it by another party with an unknown agenda who wants 100% of your attention - NOW. - I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU
I can now have customers who I never meet. That used to be very difficult. But now, I can see people, talk to them in real time, swap messages and files, send them sound files and presentations, have a video-conference with them… whether they are half a world away or live around the corner. - LIFE’S TOO SHORT
A friend of mine died suddenly this year. David was 42. He did not suffer fools gladly, and could summarise biblical volumes of information in a pithy, witty phrase. But he ran out of time. We all will.
“I prefer email and tweets and other online communications over telephone and face to face meetings because it allows me to manage my own time. When I’m meeting face to face the other person will automatically assume they have an hour of my time, which seems to be the standard meeting length, and will take all of that time to talk TO me.
In an email I might grasp their concept within 2 minutes and be ready with a reply. Other times I need to think about their message overnight. All of this is impossible in face to face meetings where an immediate reaction and 100% dedication is demanded.”
So if you want to have a meeting with me here’s how to start the conversation:- Let’s tweet.
But what about you - what’s changed the way you handle meetings over the past few years?
Sean Connery copies biographer’s photo for his autobiography! August 25, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : authors, brand, digital biographer, online identity, share, Кибер-биограф ,Sir Sean Connery launched his official biography today at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, a work co-written by our mutual friend, the urbane Murray Grigor.
I just got my first look at the book’s cover. Something seems very familiar about that pose, and the cropping of the photo… now where have I seen that approach before?
Do you think I should be asking Sean’s book designers or the photographer to confess their plagiarism, and show the world their web browser histories? 
Happy Birthday Sean - we both know how to hide the fact we’ve got less hair than we did when we were younger. The name’s Petherick. David Petherick…
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Digital Biographer reaches Russia. And Russian.
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, brand, digital biographer, online identity, search marketing, social media, Кибер-биограф ,‘Keeber-biograph‘, meaning Cyber-Biographer. 
This is a term I came across today when searching through Yandex, the Russian search engine that’s been in the news recently, and which is rightly proud of the fact that, thanks to them, Russia is one of only four countries where Google is not the significantly dominant search engine.
The term came up in a blog by Maya Kim, in the context of an article by Steve Rubel entitled ‘Three Emerging Digital Careers to Watch‘ and I was interested to see that only one of the three terms Steve had used had been expanded and given further clarification using English terms in the context of a Russian blog.
Steve’s Term of Super Cruncher was unchanged, and Chief Customer Experience Officer was simply translated into Russian as ‘Head of the Department of Quality Service for Clients’. But his term ‘Digital Storytellers’ was translated into Russian as ‘Cyber-Biographer’, and also expanded to include the English terms ‘digital storyteller, cyberspace concierge, blog butler, ghost blogger, digital biographer‘.
I recall the terms ‘Cyber Concierge’, ‘Blog Butler’ and ‘Ghost Blogger’ were used when BBC News 24 wrote about my work over a year ago, but I was surprised, and quite delighted, to find this reference being made. (For those of you who may not be aware of the fact, I speak fairly good Russian.)
I like the term Digital Storyteller - it’s a good description of some elements of my work. But I still think that ‘biographer’ is closer to describing things accurately:
biography
noun ( pl. -phies)
an account of someone’s life written by someone else.
• writing of such a type as a branch of literature.
• a human life in its course : although their individual biographies are different, both are motivated by a similar ambition.
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Yellow Pages for Twitter: Where’s your listing? August 7, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, brand, commerce, online identity, search marketing, social media ,As someone involved in what I reluctantly term ‘online reputation management’, I carry out a regular search for my own name, and those used by my customers, and I was interested recently to come across my name in relation to twitter, but with the accompanying description of ‘Chef’. *
Now, I use the phrase ‘word chef’ to describe what I do rewriting online profiles, and include the phrase in my Twitter Profile’s brief description, so this was not a huge surprise, but I was surprised to find myself in a ‘Directory of Twitter Chefs‘ when I first came across Twellow.com in July.
I claimed my entry by just entering my twitter password, and then could add various social media profiles, add myself to directory categories that fit my activities, and was also able to find other people in twitter with activities and interests like mine (or, importantly, quite unlike mine).
I was placed into the ‘chef’ category because the word appeared in my twitter description and matched the taxonomy of the search categories. I’d advise you to check that you’re in the most appropriate categories - and have a browse for other twitter members in various categories.
There is also a powerful search facility, which can either be directory-wide, or can focus on a specific ‘vertical’ - so you can find all of the Internet Marketing geeks with Tokyo in their profile, for example. It’s one thing to be able to search for what people are tweeting about, but it’s also very useful to know who the people on twitter are.
Simple and powerful idea
The site is a property of IEntry, known mainly for its advertising sites, but for now, there are few ads appearing on Twellow. I’m sure it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how they might monetize a Twitter Directory, although at present, those with the most followers, default to top of the page, with a filter to swap to showing those with the most recent twitter updates.
So - are you categorised correctly? Go to Twellow now and check your entry! I was amazed to see that in the Geeks Category, Robert Scoble hasn’t yet claimed his profile!
* I will be looking at some tools for monitoring online conversations later this month - make sure you are subscribed to the Digital Biographer RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter.
Digital Biographer moooving in the right direction… February 9, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : Utterances, authors, brand, corporate blogs, digital biographer, googlicious, online identity, share, social media, sound, streams ,You may have noticed some sound files being added to this blog over the past few days. Well, you’re not alone - the people who run Utterz.com seem to have noticed too, and have created a rotating banner for the site that advertises my content.
I am deeply flattered, and felt the need to reciprocate the attention by writing a little about the site - click the image below to see why I find Utterz such a useful resource to enhance my personal brand online, and do add your own comments when you see the full-size image - you can do so easily thanks to the great Skitch application. I also enjoy the humorous cow metaphor subtly used throughout the site, where Utterz = Udders (Geddit?), so you can ‘be herd, add ‘mooving’ pictures etc.
My Utterz Profile: http://www.utterz.com/~h-davidpetherick/profile.php
HTTV Shortcut: http://httv.biz/utterz/
Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign, and Yahoo! on Board at OpenID February 7, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, commerce, online identity, share, social media ,A formal announcement has been made today that Yahoo!, Microsoft, Verisign, Google and IBM will all join the OpenID Foundation as Board Members.
What exactly is OpenID? The way they put it at MyOpenID, which is one of many OpenID providers, is simple and compelling: “Start using the last username and password you’ll ever need. Signing up with myOpenID gets you:
- Secure control of your digital identity
- Easy sign-in on enabled sites
- Account activity reports
- Ability to manage multiple personas for different sites, and a whole lot more!”
I think we all find it very useful to be able to just need to remember one sign-in for many different web sites - and it’s also useful to be able to control the level of information and detail that people can see associated with a ‘persona’ - I can choose to have different information and types of information available for my different social and business ‘personas’. It also means that you can more easily update your details, and not worry that dozens of different sites have what might be out-of-date information.
Yahoo enabled openID a few weeks ago, as reported at TheNextWeb Blog, and with this announcement, OpenID seems to be close to becoming the global industry standard for online identity, where a single sign-on will allow access to entirely separate resources, and it should also increase the security of one’s personal identity, and lessen the scope for phishing and ID theft. The OpenID announcement is rightfully bullish about the progress thats been made.
Last year, OpenID grew by leaps and bounds both as a technology and as a community. At the beginning of 2006, there were fewer than 20-million OpenID enabled URLs and less than 500 websites where they could be used. Today there are over a quarter of a billion OpenIDs and well over 10,000 websites to accept them.
At the same time, they also acknolwedge that although Yahoo!’s implentation was a good start, there is still a job to do to make OpenID “clear and comprehensible to those who aren’t geeks.”
So, is OpenID clear?
Facebook Business Pages are GO for Search Marketing: they now get Page 1 at Google January 31, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : brand, digital biographer, facebook, googlicious, mobile search, online identity, search marketing ,A few weeks ago, Facebook changed something slightly. They made their business pages and personal listings include an extra section in their centre, with the subject of the page written in there. Why? Search visibility.
Previously, my Facebook page was at
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=850265552
Now, it’s at
http://www.facebook.com/people/David_Petherick/850265552
So what? Well, OK, so it’s easier to remember - but it’s also visible to search. The old one still works, but the new one is in the top 20 for a Google Search for my name between long-standing entries at Association For Community Networking and 43 Things.
My Business Page for Certain Host is right up on Google, as you can see below - and that’s a search with more than 7 million pages in my wake.
So if you want to be found for a specific search term, just add a page to facebook, name it accordingly, and convert your customers from there. There is a catch though - I can’t edit my Business Pages on Facebook this evening. I suspect the reason is because this news is spreading…
How is your business page doing on facebook? Got many fans yet? What are you going to do to monetise it, manage it, and keep it fresh?
http://facebook.digitalbiographer.com arrives 12th February 2008.
Digital Footprints: What size boots do you wear? January 26, 2008
Posted by David Petherick in : 2.0, digital biographer, googlicious, online identity, search marketing, social media ,Pew Internet have published an interesting report, with a topic that’s absolutely my focus, but which I’ve only just had time to absorb. It’s clearly titled “Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency” and it’s free to download as a PDF from Pew Internet.
The original questions that the report is based on are also available, a very useful measure to allow interpretation of any report - hats off to Pwe Internet for that simple addition, in addition to the report’s methodology being included at the end of the report.
Digital Footprints: Summary of Findings at a Glance
- The nature of personal information is changing in the age of Web 2.0.
- Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint; 47% have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% five years ago.
- Few monitor their online presence with great regularity.
- Most internet users are not concerned about the amount of information available about them online, and most do not take steps to limit that information.
- Internet users have reason to be uncertain about the availability of personal data; 60% of those who search for their names actually find information about themselves online, but 38% say their searches come up short.
- One in ten internet users have a job that requires them to self-promote or market their name online.
- Among adults who create social networking profiles, transparency is the norm.
- More than half of all adult internet users have used a search engine to follow others’ footprints.
- Basic contact information tops most searchers’ wish lists.
There are some interesting terms and stats thrown up in the report which I include to pique your interest.
- Passive Digital Footprint: Personal data made accessible online with no deliberate intervention from an individual.
- “Second degree” personal information is material about you that may not be connected to your real name or is provided by someone else, with or without your knowledge.
- 11% of adult internet users say they have searched online for information about someone they are thinking about hiring or working with.
- 19% of adult internet users have searched for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors.
- Most users in search of information about others have some difficulty finding the information they want.
- The drive to be recognized online is so strong in certain circles that some parents have even begun to consider these issues when naming their children.
Related Blog: You’re a Nobody unless your name Googles well - Wall Street Journal (May 2007)
