Amybeth Hale - Research Goddess

I just read an article on Slow Leadership today which talked about the old Aesop’s fable of the goose who laid golden eggs. The story is about a farmer and his wife who had a goose that laid golden eggs - one per day. They were excited about this, but their growing greed caused them to kill the goose in an attempt to get to the source of the golden eggs, and they found nothing. In doing so, they also lost the daily golden egg. In the article the similarity was drawn between allowing for creativity in the workplace, and how putting too much stress on the creative process in an attempt to produce more, faster inevitably ‘kills’ the creativity.

Sourcing could very easily be classified as a ‘golden egg’ in the world of recruiting. According to the article, “Anyone who can produce innovations and fresh approaches to business problems is worth his or her weight in gold to today’s organizations — especially if they can do it on a regular and predictable basis.” I would say that those of us who operate in a research and/or sourcing function have strategic and creative elements in our daily duties. We evaluate, use, and tweak different resources and technologies to help us do our jobs a little easier. We must be creative in our initial outreach so as not to fall into the category of “all the other recruiters out there”. This is not to say that recruiters do not engage in these activities, but my guess is that we were hired as researchers to bring a fresh new approach and creative ideas to finding talent.

So, what happens as our clients and coworkers start seeing the results of our research? It’s exciting to have passive prospects brought in where there may not have been many before. In this excitement, more is demanded. And more, and more and more… I think you get the picture. Many out there in sourcing and research roles can relate to this - clients want more in less time, and the pressure starts getting loaded on. Eventually, researchers end up having more on their plate than they can handle. So, what happens to people when they’re under the gun to meet deadlines? They start taking the path of least resistance in order to meet the demands. And in our world, this may mean reverting back to the old reliable sources like resume boards and such, just to make people happy. When this happens, the innovation and creative approach to bringing in fresh talent get thrown out the window. Why? Because there’s simply no time for it when you’re trying to meet rising demands. New creative approaches are abandoned because they’re a little more time consuming. Small details are laid aside to ‘be done later’ (which we all know means they’ll never get done!). All in all, we end up no better than where we started out, scratching our heads and wondering why nothing’s changed.

How can we take steps to help avoid killing our sourcing golden geese? Here are a couple of things to consider, and I HIGHLY encourage reading the entire article on Slow Leadership (and subscribe to the blog as well…it’s amazing):

1. Recognize the differences in sourcing and recruiting. Understanding that research and sourcing are NOT the same as recruiting is critical. By believing that they’re one and the same, you are ignoring that while they are similar, they are different functions in the organization and therefore cannot, and should not, be evaluated by the exact same standards.
2. Educate the organization. By letting your colleagues and clients know about the uniqueness of the sourcing position, you can help them establish realistic expectations from sourcing efforts. Otherwise, the only template they’ll probably relate to you is that from recruiting, and see #1 for my thoughts on that.
3. Understand that sourcing takes time. It would be nice if we as researchers could just snap our fingers and magically have prospects appear. But it doesn’t work like that. Building a network takes time. Finding appropriate people to contact for a position takes time. Finding out if they’re even interested takes time. Making sure they’re qualified takes time.
4. Apply pressure in healthy doses. As the article indicates, a small amount of pressure stimulates creative juices. If you have a research team, challenge them to find a more efficient way to gather data from a site, or a more creative approach to generating interest in your company or position. But give them reasonable timeframes in which to accomplish this. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw awhile ago of an individual who was preparing to be spontaneous, which is a bit of an oxymoron. Sometimes, creativity and innovation just happen. Sometimes, they need a little push. And sometimes, they need a break and no amount of forceful pressure will cause them to happen, and in fact it will have the opposite affect.
5. Slow down to speed up. ‘Nuff said.

Remember that when your company decided to hire a researcher, the reason was probably to bring a new creative element into the recruiting process. Before you kill the source of that golden egg, consider that it is different and needs to be nurtured differently. This of course is not license for researchers and sourcers to slack off and be lazy in our work. Rather, it is a wake-up call and reminder not to forget what you were looking for when you hired your researcher

My friend Rachel pointed me to this article (thanks girl!) and when I read it, I put my hands up in the air and shouted “Thank you!” - even though no one was around to hear me Some of you whom I’ve spoken with recently know that I personally don’t care for all this recession discussion, and I’m pleased that someone has written an article tying networking to a solution for it! I’ve copied the entire thing below, but please do also check out Dr. Ivan Misner’s entire article. Dr. Misner is the founder of BNI, Business Network International. The bold italics in the article below are my own to emphasize parts that we as professional networkers should pay special attention to. In addition, take the time to read the comments people have left after the article for some suggestions ENJOY!

I refuse to participate in a recession!
by Dr. Ivan Misner, Founder of BNI

Many economic gurus are saying the “R” word …. recession. For the most part, the U.S. economy has been strong and business has been good for the past decade. However, the economy goes through cycles. Even if we don’t see a full-blown recession, business is slowing for many people.

Unfortunately, every time the economy takes a downturn, the fallout is felt strongly by salespeople, business owners and professionals alike. Successful business professionals learn from the past. For some, this will not be our first recession.

So what did we learn from previous economic downturns? In the early ’90s, right in the middle of a nasty recession, I was at a business mixer in Connecticut meeting many local business professionals. It seemed that everyone was feeling the crunch from the slow economy.

Throughout the entire event, the favorite topic of discussion was how bad the economy was and how things were getting worse. The whole affair was depressing because nearly everyone was obsessed with the problems of the economy and its impact on his or her business .

I was introduced to one of the many real estate agents attending. Given the decrease in property values in the state, I was leery of asking this gentleman the standard “How’s business?” question. He shared with me, though, that he was having a great year. Naturally, I was surprised and asked, “You did say you were in real estate, didn’t you?” “Yes.” “We are in Connecticut, aren’t we?” “Yes,” he said with a slight grin. “And you’re having a good year?” I asked. “I’m actually having my best year ever!” he said.“Your best year!” I said in amazement.

After thinking for a moment I asked him, “Is this your first year in real estate?” “No,” he replied with a laugh. “I’ve been in real estate for almost 10 years.” I asked him how he was doing so well, given the conditions of the economy and the stiff competition. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge that said:

I Absolutely Refuse to Participate in a Recession!

“That’s your secret?” I asked. “You refuse to participate in the recession, so business is booming?” “That’s correct,” he said. “While most of my competitors are crying the blues about how bad business is, I’m out drumming up a ton of business networking with my contacts and generating referrals.”

Considering what he said, I looked around the room and listened in on people for a while as they complained about how bad business was. While nearly all were commiserating with one another, I concluded that very few were actually networking and working on seeking new business. As a result, very little business was actually being accomplished. If you want to do well in business, you must understand that it does absolutely no good to complain to people about tough times. When you complain about how bad business is, half the people you tell don’t care and the other half are glad you’re worse off than they are.

While you cannot control the economy or your competition, you can control your response to the economy. Referrals can keep your business alive and well during an economic downturn. During the last recession, I watched thousands of businesspeople grow and prosper. They were successful because they consciously made the decision to refuse to participate in a recession. They did so by developing their networking skills and learning how to build their business through word of mouth.

Don’t let a bad economy be your excuse for failure. Instead, make it your opportunity to succeed. While others are looking at the problems, those of us looking for opportunities will not only get through a bad economy but will prosper.

My new ‘friend’ in PR, Staci Stringer, has written a nice post on her blog entitled “Digital Dirt“, in which she talks about the importance of keeping a good image online especially while job-seeking. I’m glad to see that college professors are taking this seriously and empowering their students with proper thought processes while preparing them to enter the work world. Staci describes one professor who used a classroom demonstration to drive a point home:

“…he searches for his students on Facebook before his first class and when he calls role he pulls up interesting photos of his students. He says, ‘If I can find it, your potential future internships and employers can find it, too.’ This sticks with students, because it embarrasses the student.”

Please read Staci’s article here on her blog, If I Knew All The Words. This is a good read for those who are currently job seeking!

I had the absolute pleasure of spending about an hour with Joel Postman, a PR contact referred to me by the wonderful Marie Domingo, while I was in San Francisco. We chatted after the Web 2.0 conference was officially over and I was waiting around for my red-eye flight. While we chatted, we threw around some ideas and discussed how some folks who blog, regardless of the industries in which they write, are just downright mean to both their readers and their colleagues. Joel told me he’d been thinking about writing a post about this very issue, and I just read it here. I think there is so much truth to this and I’m glad he had the gumption to write it out. He calls out those who have “gained their fame through a first-mover advantage and are ultimately, well, jerks who use bullying and other questionable tactics to generate traffic.”

But, he says, there is good news in that the very social aspect of blogging will eventually show the true colors of these folks and expose them for the jerks that they are!

I will add a bit of advice to this, and that is to all the folks out there who are relatively unknown bloggers - don’t let the cewebrity jerk bloggers intimidate you, and don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you yourself have to be a jerk in order to become popular. Be true to your writing style and have patience And remember that what goes around eventually comes back around!

Read Joel’s whole post right here!

How many of you out there were band nerds in high school? Or the art geek who always had paint or clay stuck in your hair? Or the music dork who had a garage band that sucked (even though you thought you were awesome). What about the science geeks who were always blowing stuff up in chemistry lab, or throwing around frog guts during biology? Or the computer nerd who was one of the first kids on the block to get an Atari, or spent your evenings chatting on AOL when they still charged by the minute, or sat in your parents’ basement punching out code (I know for a fact that some of you are still there!!) There are so many kinds, and where it used to be…well, uncool to be a geek, now geek is the new black.

Geeks are hot - and it’s time they were honored And finally, there is a website to confirm this - Sexiest Geeks Alive. TechCrunch tweeted about this website last month, and since I was interested in checking out some hot geeks, I followed the link. The folks who have created this site say that “the world should spend more time celebrating the sexiness of geeks” - and to that I say heck yes! The site is still pretty new, but I was pleased to see both sexy male AND female geeks here. And I love the category ‘Shower Thoughts’ - how many of us are guilty of daydreaming about someone sexy while we’re in the shower? I know I am… 

I fully support this endeavor! I’m personally coming up with a list of people whom I think are sexy geeks to give to Cianna (maybe YOU’RE on the list….hmmmm!), and I’d encourage you all to help her out as well and recommend some nerdy hotties. Send an email to nominate[at]sexiestgeeksalive.com if you have someone in mind who should be honored as a sexy geek - we should certainly get sourcing and research represented!

A new colleague and local Cincinnatian, Kevin Dugan, pointed me toward this article by Max Kalehoff, discussing some recommendations given by Brian Morrissey, Adweek’s Digital Editor, to PR pitchers on Twitter. I think the advice provided applies to recruiters and researchers who utilize Twitter for business purposes as well. Check out a few of the tips Brian gives here that were actual Twitter messages he sent, and substitute “PR” with “recruiting”:

• Spam Is Spam Is Spam: “Dear PR people: you spam me enough thru email, must you use Facebook too? Why not drop by the apartment? Let yourself in, get comfortable.”
• Aspire To Great Work, Not So-Called Expertise: “everyone wants to be an expert. would be nice if same people had actual examples of cool stuff they’re doing. lots of talk, less action.” [this made me think of some of IBM's new commercials which say "Stop Talking. Start Doing"]
• Engage Your Prospects Selectively And With Respect: “the PR world is just as much spray and pray as the ad world. I’m doused every single day.”  
• Personal Touches Matter: “arrived to my cube to find a note left for me on my chair. can’t say i’ve gotten one of those in some time.”
• Don’t Lie About Your Affiliation: “Bothered by PR agency flacks who say they’re ‘with’ a company. They’re not. They’re with a PR agency hired by the company.”
• Paid Endorsements Are Not Credible: “Breaking: Interactive TV vendor pays for research finding consumers have “increasing appetite for interactive TV.”

For the rest of the list and this informative post, click here.

Alright, I’ll admit I’ve become a bit of a TechCrunch junkie as of late, but I think there’s a ton of great stuff on the site that is completely relevant to internet research blogging topics. I thought this particular post was fantastic as Arrington rants a little bit about how money and politics in big money blogging taint the original purpose of a blog, which is to express an opinion. He talks about bloggers doing battle amongst themselves, taking potshots at each other over emotional issues. He believes it’s good for them to duke it out, so long as there are ”no loose ends dangling about” afterward (in other words, speak your peace, then let it go). I like his description of the blogosphere, calling it “a frontier town with no lawman.” This apparently happens in all industries where bloggers are gaining more popularity and demanding higher pay for their activity.

As a nice aside, Arrington impressed me in the middle of his rant talking about a pay-it-forward that he does: “…when I see a young but promising blogger, I’ll start linking to him or her constantly to build them up (others, like Winer, Scoble, Jarvis and Rubel did that for me)…” I think that’s nice, and it shows that he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

Read the whole article here- it puts current blogging into perspective.

Jeremiah Owyang brought this post by Bernard Lunn to my attention through Twitter last week, a post comparing LinkedIn and Xing popularity and how this will play out internationally with social networks. Xing is a public company with heavier use in Europe, while LinkedIn is still privately held with seemingly a larger user base in the United States. This article is a worthwhile read for anyone who uses social networks for recruiting purposes, as financials, usage, and popularity are discussed. You might be surprised by the results too!

I checked out this post by Karen Russell, who teaches a Word of Mouth Communications class at the University of Georgia. This list was compiled by her class regarding the “social media tools that ad/PR students should know how to use, as well as the skills and characteristics that they should cultivate, in order to be prepared for 21st-century jobs.” I think it’s great that students are thinking about this stuff before entering the workplace! Even though made for PR students, both of these lists are good things for internet researchers and sourcers to note when thinking about the skills needed and the resources that will be helpful in developing a successful research/sourcing career. Check out the list of social media tools they came up with here; do YOU use all these resources?

Social Media Tools

• Blogging
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Podcasting
• Flickr
• Facebook, MySpace (social networks)
• Wikipedia
• Google docs, chat, groups, etc.
• RSS feeds and aggregators
• Social bookmarking (del.icio.us)
• Search engines including blog searches
• Second Life
• LinkedIn
• VoIP, such as Skype
• Mobile media
• Interactive gaming

Was pointed to this article by Cory Doctorow who edits Boing Boing, which is a pretty popular blog! Given its popularity, I thought the 17 tips Cory went over would be worth taking a look at. He says, “Getting blogged is a delicate balance between control and publicity: the more control you exert over your content, the more you lumber it with weights that slow it down and keep it from finding its way around the net.” Great advice in my book - the more hoops you make bloggers jump through to share your stuff, the less likely they are to share it!

Read the whole article, but here are the basics of his 17 tips:

1. Have a link
2. Have a permanent link
3. Have a link for everything
4. Use real links
5. Use links that go to pages
6. Flash sites stink
7. PDFs stink
8. Streams stink
9. Put your URL on your images
10. Linking policies are ridiculous
11. Don’t worry about “bandwidth stealing”
12. Offer high-res images
13. Forget the “copyright protection” Javascript
14. Enough with the legal boilerplate
15. Let bloggers know how you’d like to be attributed
16. Creative Commons licensing takes the guesswork out of blogging
17. Finally: Send suggestions by the preferred means

Basically, link link link, and don’t be a control freak while making sure that you’re given proper credit

Thanks for sharing these ideas Cory!