Self-Promotion in Graduate School Part 2: Have a take, don’t suck, or you’re gonna get run
Jim Rome is a sports jock. Whether you think his abrasive radio persona is entertaining or not he does have a very important lesson to teach us.
Have a take.
To me, a “take” is a stance on a certain topic. This is not a piece of dogma but just a unique perspective on an issue.
Why should I have a “take”?
A take is going to help you. When you are figuring out what to write for a class paper, thesis or dissertation it is vital to have a unique angle on things. It will a llow you to be bold and creative and bring new ideas to the field. It also helps answer the difficult, “So What?” question about research.
For example, on www.storygeek.com I have a take on social networks based on my communication, telecommunication and technical skills. Don’t ramble on your blog. Have a take.
How do I get a “take”?
Draw from your unique perspective. No has your background, thoughts or voice and draw from that. If you are really stuck try having a take contrary to your own ideas. That sometimes opens up new possibilities.
Getting Run
All of this is meant to help you stand out and do good work. If you are grad school this is some of the most important formative work you will do in your career. Do you want that to suck? Keep looking for new, fresh takes and always be fearless in using them!
31 January 2007 | Mark Bell, self-promotion, blogs | Comments Off
Excellent Ways to Find New Blog Readers
To have a digital-ethos, you need to have a good blog. Darren “Problogger” Rowse has an excellent list of 23 Ideas for Finding New Readers for Your Blog on his blog today. Some of my favorites include:
3. Write Effective Post Titles - Aziz writes - “Simple and to the point. The title should create an instant urge to read the entire post… But of course it should be related to the topic of your blog”
6. Connect with Local Bloggers - Rob O writes - “The other thing I’ve been doing just recently is connecting up with other bloggers in my city and the neighboring towns. We’ve got something of a link exchange going and a nice side-effect to this is that I/we have discovered that there are quite a few more bloggers and/or website authors in the area than ever expected.”
Give it a read and let us know what you think.
31 January 2007 | Mark Bell, self-promotion, blogs | Comments Off
LinkedIn: Taking a Chance, Making Connections
Next to public speaking, approaching people we don’t know is one of the greatest fears people list when admitting what makes them nervous or apprehensive. It seems that the internet is helping us all get over that. All one need do is make a MySpace account to see just how brazen strangers can be. This kind of matchmaking contact is not networking, though.
To me, at least, networking is making contact with people with a specific purpose in mind whether it be common business concerns or mutual advantage. From my own observations, it seems that making these kind of connections can be more difficult and a bit more nerve wracking. Make a pass at a pretty girl and the worst you’ll get is the cold shoulder. Try to make contact with a giant in your field and you may become the laughing stock of the next corporate conference. This is where LinkedIn comes into the picture.
LinkedIn avoids the pettiness of MySpace and Facebook to get down to the nitty gritty of business networking. There’s no profile picture, no music playing on your profile page. It’s all about what you do, who you know, and who you want to know. LinkedIn will even allow you to get in touch with someone who you don’t know through common contacts. Using an “Introduction” you can ask one of your contacts to introduce you to one of his/her contacts and “voila!”
There are a few missing pieces on LinkedIn, though. I wish there was a network visualization tool (if there is one and I’m missing it let me know) so you could see the whole of your network and see which of your contacts know each other. I also wish you could sort your contacts by categories (again, if this can be done and I missed it let me know).
Do you use LinkedIn? Why or why not? What has it done for you?
28 January 2007 | Intellagirl, networking | 2 Comments
We are famous…well not me, but other people are
A good week here at digital-ethos. Our very own Intellagirl made the cover of Intake Magazine with a story centering on her Second Life class. Jim Walker wrote an excellent article covering SL and the put Intellagirl and her avatar on the cover. The inside story has a whole section on education in SL. She is introduced this way:
Sarah Robbins had plenty of experience using the Internet as a tool for teaching writing before anybody had ever heard of Second Life.
But none of that compared to what the Ball State instructor and her 18 freshman students experienced last semester while learning to research and write in this much-hyped virtual world.
“I taught online courses for 10 years and I spend a lot of time studying digital rhetorical on social networking sites like MySpace,” Robbins, 31, said. “But, as soon as I got into Second Life, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this is it. I have to teach a class here.’ “
But Wait There’s More!
Looky on page 11 is also our very own Ryan Hupfer and Mitch Maxson talking about their new book, MySpace for Dummies. The story talks about his pizza party book release and cover what a swell guys Hup and Mitch are! Such quotes as:
Ryan Hupfer and his co-authors are no dummies when it comes to making new technology work for them.
Lots of pictures of all three digital-ethos contributors.
Man, the rest of us need to get into gear. C.C. on the cover of the Economist?
26 January 2007 | Intellagirl, Ryan Hupfer, Mitch Maxson | Comments Off
Tracking your blog readers
It’s not enough just to blog. Posting is the beginning of the conversation but then your readers have to take over. Some will leave comments (which you certainly read and respond to) but others will talk about your blog on their own blog. So how are you to know who is talking about you? Well there are a couple of methods.
1. Trackbacks: Most blogging software will show you who has linked to your blog. Follow the links, read up, comment, add folks to your blogroll!
2. Google Alerts: Use a google alert to check for your name, blog name, and username (if you use a pseudonym like I do). You’ll be amazed what you’ll find in your inbox!
3. Technorati, Google Blogsearch, and Bloglines: Make use of search engines that just look at blogs. Most will give you a RSS feed you can use to see who has written aboout your blog.
4. Del.icio.us Tagometer plug-in: Like the plug-in we have here on our front page, this del.icio.us plug-in allows you to see who has linked to you on del.icio.us and how they tagged the link. Follow the breadcrumbs to see what else these folks are interested in. You might find a way to increase your readership.
Don’t let the conversation stop at your blog post!
23 January 2007 | Intellagirl, self-promotion | Comments Off
Self-Promotion in Graduate School Part 1: I Love it When a Plan Comes Together
I stated earlier that to promote yourself in the academic arena you needed to have a plan. Before you think I am going to launch into 300 page book on how to plan things in detail this is a much simpler plan.
- Get a goal
- List the work
- Work the list
- Complete
- Repeat
GOOOOOOOOAL!
You don’t have to have a grand plan for the rest of your life but get a goal. Honestly, what the hell are you doing in your life without a goal? Now, this goal doesn’t have to be a traditional view of success (money, fame, advancement) it can be paint a picture or write a novel no one will read but at least it is a goal. So how do you get a goal? Ask yourself, “What I want to do?” go beyond that and ask, “If I was free of money time and other constraints, what do I want to do?” This is your goal. If you want o get a PhD, then get one. If you want to teach, then teach. If you want anything to do with academia then leave it guilt free.
List the Work & Work the List
Again, I could write a book on ToDo lists. They are a personal obsession of mine but here are a few very simple things. List five (or some other nice round number but try to keep it fewer than ten) steps to your goal. Do those steps. All the rest is blah blah blah. Forget it. Keep things simple and you will reach your goals. You advisor will help yu with these goals. In academia, there can be prescribed steps you have to take to reach certain goals.
Complete
Do stuff. Don’t let inertia win. It is as simple as that stop wasting your life on not finishing things and cross something off the list.
Repeat
Figure out your next goal. Follow the same steps.
Conclusion
I know this sounds horribly simplistic. It doesn’t take into account the near infinite influences on a goal and certainly glosses over the constraints. You can find fault in all of this or you can get on with your plan. I as in a terrible situation a few years ago and I was not letting myself live to my goals. It is a very dark place I never want to go back to. If you are there now, make a goal, any goal and keep reading.
15 January 2007 | Mark Bell, academia, Planning | 1 Comment
Leveraging Your Digital Ethos to get Real World Results
Man, I don’t know about all of you, but I love the Internet. I’m not sure when the love affair officially began, but I tell you what - it’s the real deal. The fact that I just left an AIM chat session with a girl from New Jersey whom I met on family vacation in 2000 is awesome.
I know that it sounds very cliche’, but these days everyone is just a click away.
But, creating these online connections and releationships (your digital ethos) is one thing - creating an opportunity for tangible results because of them is another. When I say ‘tangible results’ I mean it in a very broad way. For example, tangible results from my online friendship with my friend could simply mean having a couch to crash on while traveling through New Jersey (which I’ve done), while tangible results from a college’s digital ethos could mean a result in increased student applications for the upcoming academic year. Although the results and audiences (friend vs. prosepective college students) are very different, the way that the relationships are built and managed are surprisingly very similiar.
One recent example of me leveraging my digital ethos happened just last week. As you may or may not know myself, along with another Digital-Ethos contributor, Mitch Maxson, recently finished the book MySpace For Dummies. Well, there is a local alt-weekly newspaper called INtake here in Indianapolis that is going to write up a story on the book in a couple of weeks and they needed a photo of the authors. Originally they wanted me, Mitch and Ryan Williams to pose with the books in the usual, cheesy way that you always see people posing in newspapers.
Needless to say I had a better idea. Why not see if some of my fellow MySpace homies want to get into the photo (and in INtake) with us? I know I only had a little under 24 hours to get something together, but why not? Anyways, I’m always up for a challenge.
I quickly got the OK from INtake to set up a new photo shoot and I found a new place for eveyone to meet up, Hot Box Pizza (a local pizza joint in town and a current MediaSauce client). Next it was time to tell all of my MySpace friends about it…that is always the fun part.
First, I created a nifty little flyer in Photoshop. I know…mad skills, right?
It never hurts to put something fun together in order to get people’s attention. I’m not the greatest flyer designer by any means, but it still did the trick.
Then, I wrote a blog inviting people out to the photo shoot madness in my MySpace blog here.
At this point it’s all about creating understanding and setting expectations for the people reading it. Plus, who can pass up free pizza? Also notice that I inserted code into my blog that readers could copy & paste into their own bulletins. This extended my reach even further beyond just my friends list.
Next, I shot out a bulletin that went out to all of my MySpace friends that pointed them back to my blog.
The bulletin had the flyer image included and it also had a link that opened directly to my blog (in a new window). It’s very important to make it as easy as possible for people reading your bulletins to interact with them.
Considering that I had less than 24 hours to get people to the shoot, I did’t have super-high expectations for the turnout. Mitch also made sure to tell me that “It’s going to really suck if only like 4 people show up.” I can always count on my homeboy Mitch.
Anyways, the time for the photo shoot came and believe it or not, people showed up. Lots of people actually. We had so many people that we couldn’t even fit eveyone into the photo, which is going to be the greatest INtake photo ever taken. Why did all of these people show up? Simple - I gave them great reasons to come out (free food, chance to be in INtake, hang out with friends, etc.) and I communicated it to them in a clear, fun and engaging way.
My digital ethos was officially leveraged…and I even have a video to prove it.
Indeed, I love the Internet.
14 January 2007 | Ryan Hupfer, ethos | Comments Off
Self-Promotion in Graduate School or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Started a Blog
The idea of self-promotion in academia may sound foreign, but it this day and age it is essential. This is the hard reality. In grad school, your job is to find a job where you can do what you like to do. This can be in or out of academia but either end-point requires some method self-promotion. Far too often, grad students get involved with only the goings on in their current program with no plan or idea about what comes next. It is important to do excellent work for your professors but they are not the entire field. Also most schools don’t hire their own grads. My view is that grad school is one long interview process. For success, you must become a known entity. I know one incredible smart, charismatic grad student who is doing amazing work but does not promote himself enough. He needs to get over it. Maybe I will use him as a case study.
For me the essentials student self-promotion tools are the following:
- Have a plan
- Have a take
- Have a blog
- Join Mail Lists
- Contact other people
Over the next few posts, I will go into detail with each of these things. Being an academic has to be one of the most rewarding and engaging jobs and self-promotion just makes it more so.
Also, please if you have self-promotion ideas in academia pleas pass them onto me so I can share them with DE readers.
More to come!
12 January 2007 | Mark Bell, academia, self-promotion | 2 Comments
New Phone and Mobile Networking
As you know if you’ve read my blog, I’m all about meeting new people. I’m endlessly interested in what other people are working on in SL and out. I believe in the great good of the collective mind. The more people communicate, the more people work together, the better the world will be for all of us. Pierre Levy’s Collective Intelligence is a work of genius!
At least, this is how I justify my new phone. I recently purchased an XV6700. It’s a pocket PC with constant internet access. My email is finally truly in my pocket. I had a Sidekick in the past but the connection was hit or miss and I was never happy with the keyboard because I prefer to have girly long nails and the buttons were difficult not to fat-finger when I tried to type. The new phone solves all of the fingernail problems with an awesome touch screen with a stylus (though I’ve learned that the corner of my nail works just as well!). It has the Pocket PC Windows on it complete with Office. I can make PowerPoint presentations in the car! Woot!
No longer am I tied to my desk or afraid that I’ll miss an important email while I’m away. On this baby I can check email, listen to music, make a spreadsheet, and answer a call all at the same time! I’ll never be disconnected from the world again.
But enough about how great my phone is…here’s the real point. Because of Bluetooth and GPS built into phones like this, I think we’re going to start seeing more and more applications that let us not only communicate with people far away, but also the folks sitting right next to us at a conference, on the bus, or waiting in the airport. Software like Imity will allow folks with Bluetooth enabled phones to see profiles of people nearby and find out if they have things in common. Just imagine sitting in the airport bar fiddling with your phone when you realize that a guy at the other end of the bar works for a company you’ve been trying to get a meeting with for months. Striking up a conversation and making that connection is easier than ever. With these new technologies we can let people know who we are and what we do in a passive way. You can market yourself while waiting for a flight, standing in line, or attending a presentation. I know, you’re thinking that this is the digital Dating Game but it can certainly do much more than tell someone what your sign is. A profile on a service like Imity can announce to other users what business you’re in, that you have a great website, and that you’re open to conversation.
One more argument against the naysayers who think that technology will drive a wedge between people. Technology, if used correctly, will NOT destroy interpersonal communication. It will enhance it. So get out there and start letting your phone do the work for you!
10 January 2007 | Intellagirl, mobile, networking | 3 Comments
iWantone
I’m many things to many different people—we all are, and it’s that unique blend of passions, personalities, and predispositions that adds up to who you are and what you’re all about (your ethos). Today, the sum of my being is assuredly pointing the barometer towards “technodork”, and it’s all Apple’s fault.
In today’s keynote presentation at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled two products that mark significant steps towards the sort of digital convergence that makes all of us who consume and create content a little bit giddy. Each of these devices truly has the potential to change the way we consume and create content while communicating about our lives. Individuals in our society are becoming increasingly comfortable with interacting with screens. Screens are the windows through which we experience entertainment, knowledge, and even social interaction. In the past, the screen defined the content that could be delivered. Today, Apple moved its focus from the computer screen to the two other screens that help shape and define our communicative existence—the television and the phone. In so doing, they have become the first major player to provide the hardware and software to provide seamless convergence across all three screens and moved us closer to an era of instant accessibility to “what I want, when I want it”—whatever that may be.
AppleTV wirelessly connects your computer to your television, making every bit of music and video content you’ve found worth of dumping into iTunes accessible for viewing on the big screen. Not only can you watch the television shows and movies you’ve downloaded, but it provides equal access to every podcast posted and every bit of user created content that you can toss into iTunes. It’s a huge step for the democratization of content—allowing the short films your neighbor’s kid produces just for fun the same ability to be seen as the latest iteration of CSI. Obviously, the dollars involved in promotion and production doesn’t exactly put little Timmy into direct competition with the major television networks, but the opportunity to have your voice heard has never been greater.
The all-star of the presentation was certainly the highly anticipated iPhone, a hybrid device that reinvents the Smartphone and provides a completely new dimension for the iPod. The iPhone is the all-in-one device that brings your entire digital being to your hand. Music, movies, email, camera, contacts, calendar, full-versions of websites—it’s all here, and it runs on the same operating system that makes all Apple computers so robust and yet, easy to use. The biggest difference is that in lieu of a keyboard, stylus, click wheel, or mouse, the iPhone embraces simplicity by making the interaction with the screen completely touch-dependant.
Whatever the screen and whatever the content, Apple is positioned to be there to help define your experience. I, for one, am ridiculously giddy about it.
10 January 2007 | News, Opinion, Mitch Maxson | Comments Off
