Learn and Lead

So Ben Southall bagged the best job in the world, the dream job of Tourism Queensland.  He gets a six-month, live-in contract to promote the Great Barrier Reef, and get paid $100K. This got me thinking what my dream job might be. Here are a few my dream jobs.

 

Consultant, Advisor... I can tell you what to do; just don't ask me to do it. And pay me top dollar for it too.

Mentor, Coach (corporate kinds)... I would love to share my knowledge and experience. Fortunately I get to do this a lot in my current job, so I am pretty much close to doing what I really like.

Teacher (academic kinds)... Become a professor in a management school, new batch of students each year, lots of time to research and experiment. Unfortunately schools require me to have fancy degrees before they would even consider me as a professor.

Writer... full time that is, not just writing a blog, and not just work stuff either. If only I can figure out how it will pay for my mortgages.

Producer, Director... of a full fledged Bollywood movie. Heck who wants the critics awards… I want the whole nine yards to produce and direct a Bollywood movie. I just need to find a close relative in the likes of Karan Johar to get started.

 

So what's your dream job?

So I succumbed to pressure and signed up my daughter on Facebook. Most of her friends are already on Facebook. In just a few hours, she has 7 friends and 3 more pending requests. Her FB wall is now active and flowing. I browsed her wall updates and some of her friends’ profiles and I am… PETRIFIED, and that’s an understatement. So I plan to give her a printout of the following rules for Facebook.

 

1. Don't talk to strangers. Just as we tell you not to talk to strangers in real life, the same rule applies online. Do not accept friend requests from people you don't know.
   
2. Watch what you say. Again similar to what's preached to you for real life, be careful of what you say. In case of writing anything online, the consequences are of much higher magnitude. Remember, what you write online will be there forever, be read by everyone, and be interpreted by the reader and not necessarily in the way you might have intended. Don't write anything that you wouldn't say directly face to face. Don't think your teachers won't be able to read what you have written simply because they are not on your friend list.
   
3. Censor the pictures you post. Don't post pictures that you don't want everyone to see. If you want show your friends pictures, show them in person instead of posting online. Remember, pictures you post online will be seen by all and will be there permanently on the Internet. Your teachers will also see these pictures. So be very careful about which pictures you post online. Initially seek approval from your parents for all pictures you want to post online.
   
4. All that glitters is not gold. Do not be lured in by the ‘cool offers’ or prizes you may have won. And don’t click on EVERYTHING that comes along on your wall. Be careful of applications you access and the sites you might visit through the incoming links. Don’t go to sites that you are not supposed to. ASK if you are not sure which ones but I am sure you do know.  UPDATE: This applies to profiles of your favorite TV and film stars. The profiles of your favorite stars might not actually be by the stars themselves. Be careful, it could be just about anyone putting up the profile.
   
5. Safeguard your privacy. Do not give out more information than necessary information to anyone. Don’t enter your personal details like address, phone number etc. for contests, quizzes etc.
   
6. Always give your correct age. Okay, well at least until you are 21. Do not try to project yourself to be older than what you are, even if your friends are doing so.
   
7. Do not make your profile public. I have set your profile settings to be private. If and when you discover how to change the settings, just make sure your settings stay private and not viewable by everyone.
   

UPDATE from Nancy Curtis on Facebook: ABSOLUTELY NON-NEGOTIABLE RULE OF ALL RULES for Facebook: you MUST be friends with your parent(s) and you MUST not use privacy settings to block your parents from any part of your page. Failure to comply with this requirement (which pertains to any and all social-networking sites including YouTube, etc) results in immediate, indefinite, complete suspension of any non-supervised non-school related computer access. (Also, the correllary is: your parent MUST always have the password to any and all of your email accounts.)

 

And here are some guidelines that I really wish she would follow.

1. Write proper English, please!!! Please please don’t just write SMS English. Writing full words will help you learn the language and your spellings too.
   
2. Don’t ask me to take quizzes. Don’t forward me the quizzes you take or ‘cool applications’ or the gifts. Oh wait, perhaps you should, so I can keep an eye on what you are doing.
   

 

Did I miss anything out? Am I being too paranoid?

 

10 reasons why should you be on Twitter:

I have been getting a lot of Twitter newbie followers, some folks who I am inducting to Twitter and others who read my blog, or have worked me at some point of time. I try to get them started by giving them tips and introducing them to people they can follow. So what’s my advice to get started on Twitter? Well Twitter is different things depending on how you use it and you need to experiment to figure out what works for you.

Here are 10 tips to get you started with Twitter.

1. Be human and introduce yourself to the world: When you set up a Twitter account, the first thing you should do is to write a short catchy bio about yourself and your interests. The second is to upload your photo or an avatar. I personally prefer a photo. These two things make your Twitter account more ‘human’. Remember, there is nothing more irritating than to be followed by a bot, or a profile that doesn’t appear to be human. Tip update: Provide a link to your LinkedIn page in your profile.
   
   
2. Don't start with a blank slate: Start off with some tweets before you actually start following people. Going to a Twitter page with no updates is a great turn off, and you aren’t really going to get any connections with an empty page (other than auto-follows). (I personally don’t like the term ‘followers’, I prefer connections. I am okay with the term ‘following’ though.).
   
   
3. Start with simple tweets: Wondering what to start tweeting about? If you are going to use Twitter to build a professional identify, DON’T start tweeting about what you had for breakfast or dinner etc. You could tweet about an interesting link (that is relevant professionally or newsworthy). Note, I say ‘tweet about’. That means you should write your two-cents worth about the link to tell the world why you are sharing the link. You could also start by re-tweeting (RT) something you found interesting on other people’s tweets. You could even start by responding to other people’s tweets (@ replies).
   
   
4. Stay within 140 character limit: Use URL shortener to reduce the length of the link you are sharing. Twiter web page, which I am assuming you will start with when new to Twitter, doesn’t have any URL shortener. Once you graduate on to a desktop Twitter application, this shouldn’t be a problem since most apps come with some (or many) URL shortening options.
   
   
5. Start following the right people: Who are the right people and how do you know who to follow? Well, I am assuming that you’ve been introduced to Twitter by someone who is already on Twitter. So follow that person. Next look at who this person is following or who are following this person. Look for the bio and tweets to see whose tweets might be of interest to you. I would recommend following people who are more active, both in terms of frequency and number of tweets, and who have a healthy mix of conversation in their tweets.  You could also use Mr. Tweet to get additional recommendations after you have started following a few people.
   
   
6. Chose who to follow based on your threshold: Initially you may want to avoid following people who tweet a lot (like more than a few tweets a day). Use followcost to check tweet frequency of who you want to follow. This is really helpful since of the things you’ll need to learn is how to deal with info overload. I mentioned in a previous post, if you have trouble with dealing with your email (“Oh gosh, I have so many emails to respond to…”, which BTW is a function of your ability to deal with transactions, not a function of number of email messages you get), Twitter is NOT for you.
   
   
7. Follow back selectively: Don’t get too worried you don’t get many connections (followers) initially. Not everyone who you follow will follow you back. And you don’t HAVE to follow back everyone who follows you. Follow back only if you think the tweets will be of interest to you. This is contrary to the general ‘twitiquette’ that you may read elsewhere. I feel you should follow those whose tweets you find valuable, and people who find your tweets valuable will follow you.
   
   
8. Install a Twitter desktop application: I recommend TweetDeck. However this needs higher RAM. You could also use Twhirl.
   
   
9. Be consistent: It takes a while to ‘get’ Twitter. Give yourself time and be consistent - consistent in logging on Twitter, consistent in following people, consistent in tweeting. Do this once a day preferably, or at least three-four times a week. 
   
   
10. Join the conversation: If you feel you aren’t getting anything out of Twitter, remember you will get what you put in. If you aren’t contributing to Twitter conversations, you won’t get much out of them.
    

Bonus 11th tip: Be patient.

Update: You may also find Gina Minks' Twitter Cheat Sheet useful.

Image by: nico.cavallotto