ALUMRISE

Whether or not you’re looking for a job or flexible position today, you’ve probably been a part of some conversation about online identity.

This is such a rich topic that one post can’t possibly do it justice, but I’ll throw out some themes and then dig deeper as I see responses.

I know personally I’ve had numerous discussions about a series of topics, like:

Should I post personal or family photos online, e.g. at Facebook?

I enjoy seeing others’ photos and feel its only fair to share. But I do worry about who’s looking at my photos online, and whether I’m being judged by a future business partner, employer or potential employee … More confusing: as business contacts join my personal Facebook site, will I need to segment? The more I need to “manage” convenient tools, the less they become convenient … so what does that mean as I comingle more and more?

Should I write a blog and if so, what’s the point of the blog… and uh-oh there’s Tweeting

My answer: I blog and tweet, but it’s organic … Haven’t quite gotten to a “strategy” really. Will get there eventually. I remind myself that I do need to pace myself. As a team we often talk about that – under-doing is so much better than much ado about nothing. If you are newly thinking of blogging, taking it slow may be a good approach. I won’t even get into Twitter… Still figuring that whole world out but finding it fun to stumble upon interesting user-sifted info (ps: A useful post from The Talent Buzz blog on how a targeted jobseeker might use a service like Twitter )

How should I be using LinkedIn or other networking tools?

I personally use these tools sparingly to understand who’s viewing me online, because it matters to my business. But then again, I am not what you’d call a power networker. I do think LinkedIn is a convenient rolodex manager, and the same is true of Plaxo or other networking tools. ALUMRISERS, do carefully manage activity and self promotion if you extend professional network use beyond simple rolodex management - it takes time investment to achieve success

With so much of professional and personal life moving online, here’s a personal bottom line fear/prediction: It’s already the wild, wild west of information and it’s only going to get more crowded and confusing as people put more about themselves out there. Sure, “Search” or “Sift” models like Google or Twitter help people find each other. But there’s a growing place for more controlled, private tools like ALUMRISE – we can help certain types of opportunity seekers stay targeted, simple, and focused on just the key end result (e.g. hire, employ, earn, succeed).

For What it’s Worth: My Advice to ALUMRISERS
1.  Segregate your employment world from your personal online, if you’re not ready to comingle
2. Keep it simple (less is more)
3. Keep it in control (Facebook vs. MySpace) and
4. Keep a sustainable pace (Tweet or blog to say something, not just to do it)
Please …. let us know if you have advice for us to share! 

A Recruting Guru’s take: Read a colleague’s thought for the day. I think John puts it nicely when he speaks about Social Media and he’s been following the online recruiting world for a whole lot longer than I have!

Dodging taxes has been in the news since the Daschle debacle.  Unfortunately, little missteps can hurt a big career.

The biggest misstep of course is a working family hiring help – or “Nannygate,” quoting a funny comment from a friend and colleague that I came across on Facebook the other day.

It’s common knowledge that despite “knowing better” many public officials do hire off-the-books household or childcare help and suffer the consequences when it comes time to take public office. So why do they do it? Surely they “know” better, right?

Let’s face it - Nannygate is the dirty little secret that many working families today could not survive without, whether or not they are public officials.

The math on child support and working families decrees that the trued-up cost of even average help can keep a productive contributor at home. In many cities, women must earn up to $15/hour (before taxes), simply to cover the cost of hourly help with family needs. Many bright and talented contributors decide it’s better to cease to work and stay home. If they find a more cost effective solution that creates some support and residual income – such as a fixed-price childcare helper - many take it and worry later about any consequences.

In our society today, mothers and fathers alike are forced to develop their own creative solutions to step the gap created between longer commuting and work day schedules and the shorter school day. These range from the “live-in” invisible housekeeper/nanny, to the paid or unpaid grandma or grandpa, to hiring some college kid to drive kids between school and afterschool programs to keep kids occupied until the family can get home. The horror of latchkey households and child predators has made it harder to allow families to send even older kids home alone after school.

So why can’t we find better solutions as a society and government to support our families and help keep the economy on track? ALUMRISE believes we must band together as a society to find better ways to support working families, either by improving childcare math and/or creating social systems to help such as better subsidized, safe, after-school care. (Let’s think about elder care, here, too).

We also believe that promoting natural, logical private sector solutions — such as creating opportunities that better tie to real family days and family lives, via more flexible arrangements — is a pure and noble goal to strive towards.

Companies also are wising up to this approach, based on a combination of skills shortages and cost needs and starting to realize the “ALUMRISER” is not a second-choice solution, but instead a viable and powerful flexible resource in a changing economic landscape.

If nothing at all is done, frankly, we’ll all cease wanting to aspire to goals such as Public Office and Becoming the Next President and instead be quite content with being the next victim of “Nannygate.” What a crying shame.