As an aside..

Aside

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If you were transferring to another department, potentially or effectively coming under the destination department’s budgetary considerations, how would you broach the subject of your salary at the interview?

The interviewer, your present colleague and potential new boss, does not know your current salary. Yet this has to be discussed. Yet, there is the chance that you won’t get this transfer/new role in that department- meaning, he would know your pay scale, for nothing.

How would you approach this?

Mindmap or infographic as your resume

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Now would be quite bold, wouldn’t it?

It would certainly stand out, using either of these formats. Either received positively or negatively I guess would depend on the respective industry.

I have always wanted to learn how to mind-map. I have read books and articles on its methods, and it now depends on my continuous practicing to get more efficient at it. Just like drawing I guess, where one develops one’s style. I have been doodling a lot recently for my personal meeting minutes, drawing boxes around topics, line-connecting them by relevance, using a different coloured pen to highlight action items, drawing icons representing ideas or noteworthy mentions. I guess that’s my own adaptation of it.

There was an interview once where I was requested to summarise and comment on an article, giving ideas on how to approach a problem. Given the time to respond to the quite-a-few number of questions, I decided to answer it using a mindmap. Turned out the whole purpose of that exercise was to determine my level of comprehension and written English, rather than my approach to the described problem. I still got the job though :)

So now I have reached a juncture in my career where my resume is already 5 pages long- inside which my different work experiences are already distilled down to the bare minimum.

Thus the idea of whether I should attempt an infographic format for it.

It would certainly capture the attention of the reader. I would certainly have to portray it in an intuitive manner where my employment chronology is easily understood, fit everything in 1-page, and definitely in tasteful colour…

But still, I am reluctant, perhaps even scared to try this.

Should I?

The contract worker

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Again, this is through my eyes.

My first gig since arriving here has been on a contractual basis. A lot of people are on contract; heck, the guys I have met at the first gig prefer to be on contract. Most have been for a good part of the last 15-20 years.

Sure it pays better, but having been on permanent basis most of my working life, contracting isn’t an “arrangement” I am used to. I guess that profiles me as likely to be a “loyal” employee to the organisation at which I am employed?

To me, the contract guys I spoke to would likely always be on the lookout: For the next gig, the next opportunity, and probably the next higher rate of pay.

I guess for me, I would worry about where the next job is coming from, the next paycheck, the next office location, new sets of faces to get to know.

For these guys, networking, I guess, is the best referral.

Word of mouth, in terms of peers from previous engagements, direct reports, lunch buddies, etc, all go towards a contractor’s tool-belt, so to speak.

So for this type of workforce, where’s the loyalty, if only to oneself?

Comments?

Thick skinned networking

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1

Gotta do it.

There was a time in my high school days when I would quite willingly go up to a new face and shake his hand introducing myself. After all, I was the newbie at the boarding school, when I arrived. Heck, everyone was a new face to me. I was thus known around the place, and in some ways probably helped lessen the stereotype of Asians only huddling amongst themselves and never mingling; but in some ways perhaps I was also seen as a “friendlier” one amongst the still-huddling.

Somewhere along the way, I “lost” that go-and-say-hi-ness; I think it may have been when I started working.

I have noticed that I don’t know as many people as I should. Yes, Capt Obvious.

Especially in my last job at the airline- a large part of my roles required having good rapport with the wider circle. No doubt I engaged the stakeholders for the immediate tasks at hand, but it is the 2nd or 3rd layer or outer circle that I tended to ignore. These folks may not help with my projects or work directly, but they could actually be any of: my champion, advocate, influencer, advisor, people-connector, even helper in that they are willing to do favours.

I wasn’t blind to this, but I have also noticed that at times I just didn’t care. It could be that I am lazy to make the effort, but I would say that perhaps I also grew.. shy.

???

There is a reason why I had so few girlfriends :) A lot of the times I need to be introduced. I cannot, don’t know how to (anymore) say something to strike up a conversation.

I have seen Caitlin, my own daughter, in playgrounds, start playing with kids her size. She unashamedly would befriend them by joining them at the playground, mimic their play, and start laughing with them. After a very short while, she would start calling out to them like they are already friends, but since she still didn’t know their names, she’d actually just call them “friend”.

“Hey friend, come here and let’s climb this,” for example.

Given my circumstances here in a new employment market, I should actually “take lessons” in my own daughter’s methods.

Attend networking sessions, meet new people, get to know them, what they do. Go out for lunch/coffee with folks who aren’t on my same project team(s), accept their invitations even if they have their own friends coming along from elsewhere.

I’m sure you already know this, but I did too.

My use of twitter?

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I started using twitter when Mike Foong introduced me to it. He likened this micro-blogging platform to SMS, only that it is broadcasted to “followers”. It was the free part that got me more interested :)

I did what I have always done in real life when meeting a new group of people talking – I listened first; after all I was a newcomer. I listened to the context, to the personalities, to the way this conversation was conducted, possibly subtly being controlled by dominant participants. What is interesting about twitter is that names could be dropped, and you can follow up on those names. You can also generally go back and see what the participants have been saying, and to whom they have been talking – and follow up on those names too.

After a while you will form a mental map of who is who and what they talk about. And just like my own parenting blog I had started following folks of similar interests, or folks in the know, and started getting into conversations with them.

I was at Malaysia Airlines’ Customer Relations Dept at that time, my second role at the company. Part of our role then was to strategise and execute our part in the Customer Value Proposition, with an advocacy program that was called “Friends of MH”. This was a group of recurring feedback-providers, frequent flyers who are influential in their network of friends and corporates, purchasing-decision makers.

Sound familiar to another type of offline engagement?

Also, as part of everyone’s duty being in that dept, I had to handle complaint cases too. Again there was a general pattern of similar complaints and service “breakages”.

It wasn’t very surprising that there were similar behaviour on twitter then. As an experiment I had created a twitter account for my particular work, eventually snagging the @MAS username. I set up searches based on these airline issues, and started listening too. Since I was already customer-serving and addressing them with corrective actions and policies, I applied the same here.

Slowly, the MAS brand was also being name-dropped on twitter. “Early” adopters (remember this was in 2008) were commenting that corporate-types are also finally getting on board social media. Little did (most of) them know that I hadn’t gotten management approval yet! It was funny that at social media gatherings that I would first introduce myself and get no response, but when I said I was handling the MAS account, I got a lot of “OH, IT’S YOU?”

These days I am still listening to conversations, learning about new trends and developments, “butting in” whenever I can, hoping to offer insights and advise where (I hope!) useful. General conversations have also introduced me to Bikram yoga :) I have also created a list of news agencies and journo-types since they have adopted a practise of tweeting and commenting on breaking headlines.

And, since I have had experience in that part of customer and brand management, I am also “listening” to how more and more brands are getting on twitter, and also how they manage the interaction and resolution ;)

So what was the real strategy and objective?

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2

Last week I participated in a competition to give away an iPad 2.

My profile: I commute to work by train. I am an avid social media user, particularly on twitter and then facebook where I’m more a lurker than an active participant. By now you would have guessed that I am a professional, and thus I actually spend more time on LinkedIn than Facebook. I don’t listen to the radio – (1) I don’t own a portable one (2) If I did I’d likely listen to the one with three-drumsticks-beating as its logo- mainly cos I generally dislike advertisements and the morning show commentaries.

I knew about the competition because the guys and gals in orange t-shirts were giving out handouts at the train station. It was also by coincidence- I don’t normally get off at that station only that I had a meeting at a different site that Monday morning.

I also don’t normally accept these handouts, mainly because I think there is already enough wasted printed paper of ads, catalogs, junk mail, in the councils, free newspapers, etc. (should also add these two to my profile above).

But I saw the keyword on this handout.

The handout

It was only back in the office that I looked into the content, followed the links for more details and the T&C, and decided to give it a go for the remaining days of the week. I had also started paying attention to their twitter and Facebook group page updates.

They were giving away an iPad 2 each day of the week in both Sydney and Melbourne. There would be clues announced at 5:30am on the weekday mornings, and these are riddles on where / city street names to meet the crew for the chance to win for that day. They would be there between 12 noon to 1pm, and whoever got there first; and if there were more than one- whoever first answers the questions correctly would be the winner for that day for that city.

On Tuesday I followed the clue and actually did manage to find them. Only that I was on time and there was already a small queue of maybe 5 people. I didn’t stand a chance, but I did hang around to see how it was conducted. They did follow the T&C on how the ultimate winner was selected for the day.

I hung around some more and spoke to one of the guys. This exercise is to raise awareness for:

  1. Their name change;
  2. General awareness of the association;
  3. To (then) increase their membership.

I draw your attention to these objectives.

So naturally I started paying more attention to their only immediate means of communicating with the general public- their social media presence; for more clues, updates, buzz, participation, etc.

Wednesday came around and I had the clue wrong; because by 12:30 I still hadn’t spotted anyone in orange t-shirts, and I had to give up for an appointment at 12:30. I guess by this time there was a little more exposure to their FB page, cos there were pleas for the right answers/locations from those who obviously (like me) got it wrong.

By Thursday their site on the handout still had not included their twitter handle or their Facebook address- they had the twitter and FB logos there yet were not link-buttons- I had to work this two information out myself on Tuesday to find the correct username and page. As the days progressed updates were slow coming- it was clearly not intended to be “live” updates for its (hopefully increasing number of?) followers; only to echo the respective clues of the day, and the winners’ names as the days passed.

Somewhere along the way (Wednesday evening I believe) I was window shopping at a nearby pharmacy and did hear the radio ad for this campaign.

The followers who did find their FB page started behaving like typical FB users- they started posting conversation pieces. A few had asked for the location, commenting that answers should be shared after the 1pm closing time. Others playfully shared their hints and clues, etc. These were generally unanswered, on their FB page as well as their twitter engagement; only a few peppered congratulatory messages and photo of winners, and “wait for the end of the week” messages. It was the winner who posted “I WON” and was kind enough to reply questions on where the Wednesday location was.

Thursday was the same story for me- unfortunately I had gotten it wrong. I had also joined in asking where the correct location was, carrying on in dialogs with one or two other participants on thoughts and answers/streets. Again, “wait for the end of the week” from the organiser.

Screen shot of updates

 

Friday came but I was busy in the office, but was still paying attention to the way this competition was conducted.

At the end of the day, at least a few hours after 1pm, I checked all three of twitter, FB, and their website.

Their FB page were #fb repeats of their tweets, plus very few additional updates. These were generally “all won”, “congrats to all winners”. Their website did finally put up the correct respective answers for the respective days.

Nothing more was added. There were a few accounting-industry related news like who-moved-up-the-corporate-ladder-type news. Nothing related to the competition, and certainly nothing engaging at all.

So the question beckons: What was the aim and real objective of this iPad giveaway competition, other than pleasing 2x 5 persons in the respective cities?

There was minimal engagement on both twitter and FB, the only 2 obvious platforms to me as Regular Joe, on the progress of the competition, engagement with the institute, awareness of them in general. Together with their website, these were the places to find their clues-for-the-day and the photos of the daily winners.

What was achieved in leaving the answers to the end of the week, with little SM-type engagements on these SM platforms, especially when there is obviously (albeit low levels of) frustration already?

There was no attempt, at least to me, to execute their campaign- unless I heard them wrong, there was no other attempts at the three listed objectives. They did however (on Tuesday when I watched them) give out their “showbags” which contained a pen, a small corporate-brochure-like booklet, and the same train-station handout; to curious passers-by who had only chanced upon this small crowd on the curbside.

I may even go as far as to say that at least 1 of the winners chanced upon their curbside set up, asked “what’s going on?” and won.
I now wonder what level of service, member benefits, engagement, feedback etc, I would get from them if I had joined, given that they have gone out to kinda announce they are giving away iPads, but definitely offered little else about who they are in the meantime.

This is how I saw the whole campaign.