Author Archives: Jason

Internet: tangled up tubes, NOT a big truck

This happened a long time ago, and there are lots of funky remixes on YouTube, but I wanted to reference it on this blog. It’s a darn shame an elected official did this… shame on him for not knowing better, shame on his staff for not educating him better, and shame on Alaska for voting him into office.

This babbling does nothing to give me peace of mind about what happens in D.C.

If you want the highlights with visuals, check this out:

Word of Mouth presentation by Andy Sernovitz – an afterthought

Many ideas went through my head as I listened to Andy Sernovitz yesterday.  It was cool to have my wife with me, as this was one of the first things that she was able to attend in the 18 months that we’ve been self-employed.  she took 3 pages of notes, too, and we talked about how to apply stuff from the presentation – very cool.

One thing that is foremost on my mind is the idea of the Topic, which is one of the five T’s.  This is the “thing” that people talk about.

deep_thought.pngThey don’t talk about “the career management tool” in normal, non-professional, non-job seeker circles, I don’t think.  What could the topic be?

Liz Strauss and Lindsey Pollak brainstormed this with me earlier this year when they were in town… the thing I remember most from that brainstorm was “take your job with you.”  The idea is that even though we transition from job to job, we still maintain career-important relationships, and we can store them in JibberJobber… hence, just as I take my degree with me, and my experience, JJ allows me to take those contact relationships with me….

This is a hard topic for me, perhaps because I’m to busy seeing the trees, while my customers/users/champions/friends are able to see the forest.  I know that JibberJobber gets word of mouth, because each day I see new people sign up from job networking meetings, which means that people are saying something about JJ in the meeting.  This is good.  Too bad I can’t hear how others are describing and promoting it, that would really help me wrap my brain around the topic.

… and now I’m rambling.  But I will continue to think of what topics are easy to repeat and spread.

Getting to SLCC Miller Free Enterprise Showroom

If you have never been to the Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) Miller Free Enterprise Showroom you might find it a little tricky… unless you follow these directions 🙂

9750 South 300 West
Sandy, Utah (Google Map)

First, you’ll want to take either 106S or 90S … either one works.

Here’s an image of what to do if you get off on 9000 South:

miller_from_9000south.png

Here’s an image of what you do if you get off on 10600 South:

miller_from_10600_south.png

Once you get there, you’ll want to park (somewhere in the yellow), and then follow the skinny red arrows. Note that the second skinny red arrow is when you’ll be IN the building. The green astrisk represents the approximate location of the auditorium.

SLCC Miller auditorium

I’m on Facebook — Now What??? (Call for submissions)

This last year I wrote “I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???” which has become a wildly successful book to help professionals wrap their brains around LinkedIn, and figure out what they should do (aside from just logging in to accept invitations).  How do I know it is wildly successful?  Because my son just bought one from me a couple of days ago… that’s saying something!

Anyway, this time I’m teaming up with Facebook guru Jesse Stay to write I’m on Facebook — Now What???  I thought about writing this earlier this year but decided not to because I figured the 30million (at the time) signups on Facebook either (a) didn’t need it, or (b) didn’t/wouldn’t read books.  I assumed that all/most of them where college kids… assumptions, assumptions.

Obviously, FB has taken the world by storm, and there are a lot more than just college kids looking to get hooked up there.  People are using it for personal branding, business branding, marketing (books, warez, services, etc.) … and it’s not exclusive to college kids anymore.

It’s also growing quickly, etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah – you already know this stuff.  It’s hot.

If you are interested in contributing please send an e-mail to my e-mail (Jason @ JibberJobber dot com) with anything you would advice the readers.  Do you have FB advice?  Suggestions on how to use it?  What to do or not do with your profile, applications, privacy issues, etc?  Do you have any specific examples or case studies of people getting jobs, selling things, etc. on Facebook?  Send them in!

After reading the book people are going to walk away with ideas and actionable suggestions, not just a history and understanding of FB.

If you are a blogger, or in the media, please shoot me an e-mail and I’ll put you on the list to get an early draft (probably not edited) so we can get your early input, possibly an endorsement, etc.  We’d like to spread the word as much as possible… if you can help let me know.  And, the publisher has an affiliate program that offers a lot more than Amazon’s piddly affiliate program.

If you want to get a better idea of the LinkedIn book, to see how it’s marketed, pricing, etc. you can check it out at http://www.HappyAbout.info/linkedinhelp.php.

Plaxo’s amazing growth is attributed to… (drum roll)

According to Caroline McCarthy at the CNET blog, the growth is attributed to the announcement of OpenSocial. Admitedly, this is Plaxo’s data, not her conlusion. Her blog post is worth reading. (Dear Caroline, don’t worry about my readers getting the wrong message here, the truth is, no one reads this blog ;)).

plaxo_growth.png

However, I have an alternative reason for Plaxo’s growth. It’s because they decided to open the spam machines out again. I swear, this seems to be the same time frame that I received about a gazillion plaxo invites. Like this one:

plaxo_spam.png

Just for the record, I like what Plaxo can do, and think it’s tre-cool. But just when they were getting over the brand and perception that they were a lean, mean, spamming machine, they opened it up again and became the topic of (negative) discussion. Oops.

Huh? What exactly is IP?

My question and answer with an attorney at a conference:

Me: Do you do intellectual property?

Attorney: Yes, we do everything in business except for trademarks and patents.

I’m sure IP goes beyond trademarks and patents, but this answer led me to believe that this guy either didn’t hear my question, or he didn’t know what I was looking for.  Even if I’m “wrong,” I’m the purchaser, and it would be worth his while to respond based on my perceptions of what IP is… don’t you think?

does this widget work?

I’m playing around with widgets… just testing to see if this one works… (if you don’t see anything, it doesn’t work :p)

Plaxo must have fixed their SMTP server

or, all of my friends invited me to their social network on the same day.  It seems like in the last 24 hours I’ve received about 15 invitations for friends in Plaxo.  So which is it?  Did they let a ton of invites out yesterday, or did all of my friends (yes, all 15 of them) invite me at once??

plaxo_friends.png

Uh, yeah, I’d say that’s an understatement.