Point Taken Fall Newsletter 2009: Issue 25

I Googled™ you and guess what I found out?

Let’s face it - first impressions aren’t what they used to be. Your parents taught you the importance of a firm handshake and a friendly smile, but they never mentioned a profile picture, twitter feed, or online resume. With the Internet at our fingertips, our colleagues, potential clients, and competitors alike can find out a lot about you just by typing your name into Google™. While dynamic and successful interactions are key in forming and keeping real relationships, it is important to manage your digital first impression.

Google yourself: Take note of what comes up and manage the content at that website to create a positive impression.
Get alerts: Set up GoogleAlerts™ for your name and organization to feed any Internet posts about you to your own email.
Think before you tweet: If you wouldn’t want your boss to read it, or your mother, don’t post it.
Look good: Pick a photo that reflects the way you want to be represented in all situations, not just social ones.
Protect with privacy: Use the privacy settings on your social networking accounts and consider the fact that even if you block some from seeing your information, there are still ways around what is shared.

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Eating and Learning Go Hand in Hand

Everything is a little smaller these days. We have micro blogs and mini feeds, smaller waistlines and thinning budgets. But while all these things are shrinking, Point Taken is expanding its repertoire.

We believe lunching and learning go hand in hand, so we have developed a new series of mini-workshops, offered over a lunch hour, to help make your team stronger contributors and better leaders. Each session is dedicated to a different skill, leaving your team energized and ready for their afternoon.

Learn more about Point Taken’s Lunch and Learn workshops.

Famous Quote:

"The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. "
– Bill Gates

Got any points you want taken?

Send us an email at askatrainer@PointTaken.net
and you may see your comments in the next newsletter.

Her Point Exactly:

A message from the president

Facebook and Google have gone the way of Fed Ex…….they have jumped in our lexicon from their start as company names to become action verbs. We ‘facebook’ and ‘google’ people and businesses on a daily basis. But at the heart of these new methods of correspondence are some very old rules of communication.

First, we are managing other’s impressions of us by choosing our behaviors carefully. Since social media falls under the heading of mass media in that almost anyone can access information on us, we want to keep our private information private, and make sure our public information is accurate and flattering.

Second, politeness matters. We extrapolate from the cyber to the real, so if you are cyber-stalking someone, you register as creepy on the real-life radar too. Connect with those who really know you, or someone you know. And if you wouldn’t dream of calling me twenty times a day, please don’t poke me that many times on Facebook either – it’s too intense for most relationships.

If you are like me, Facebook, Linked In and other networking sites are conduits to the past and bridges to the future. It’s better than a high school reunion for reconnecting old friends, and there’s a race to the million connection mark going on in some corners of Linked In. All this is in the name of making good business connections. While you’re out there forging a path in cyberspace, remember we stand in the middle ourselves, linking past and present. Stay true to the rules of communication that have served you well in person – and please, connect with me on Linked In, I’d love to be part of your network..

~Beth Rogers