You Gotta Talk! And Talk A Lot...

I want to make this posting to discuss an emergent situation I am observing. But first, your social media experience may follow a pattern of the Social Media Maturity Life Cycle Model. My experience certainly did. When these instruments became known to me I was still in a mindset of the good ole job search method of mailing resu-letters as Jeffery Fox teaches in his book How to Land a Dream Job  (circa 2001) with the slight twist of emailing them.  When I finally began to build my social network, I relied on it too much and became discouraged but kept building and networking. Slowly, I became enlightened mostly through some hard knocks and currently my social media networks are becoming more active.

Let me regress a little bit to discuss some background. Over the past decades we have observed the advent of video games and other technology based activities that essentially require solitary and/or faceless, nameless interactions. People could literally say anything and discuss anything behind an avatar and screen name. Social skills were literally tossed out the window as condemnations, insults, and putdowns dominated a majority of the dialogues online. However, there is a resurgence of civility especially where professionals are concerned.

A growing body of works illustrates a movement away from technology towards increased social interactions. The authors of the book Brains On Fire (2010) remark that technology is a trap. A crutch. They argue that it is a detriment. Other works stemming from Orville Pierson (2005), Dale Carnegie, (1938), Stephen Covey (1989), and others stress that you got to get out and talk to people. As the Internet grew in popularity The Clue Train Manifesto (1999) declared to the people of Earth that markets are conversations in which you got to inspect the goods and ask questions. In other words, you got to talk to people.

While LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media instruments are useful in one's job search, nothing is a substitute for good ole getting out there and talking to people and having people talk about you. Your social media networks are not truly useful as long as they remain in cyberspace. Plenty of movies like 'Lawnmower Man' and 'Tron' look to put one's essence into cyberspace but you need to go the other direction to get out of cyberspace. Only one movie, I can think of, Weird Science actually has cyberspace entering real space when a bunch of young boys feed data into their computer. They then have a seance and through a freak of nature a cyberspace being appears stunning the boys. Making that leap from building a successful social media network in cyberspace to talking to people is a challenge for many people. For some it can be a weird science. You've been putting connection data into the system, now is the time to bring it to life. How does one start the conversation, sustain the conversation, or even get difficult people involved? 

This can be an expansive discussion that delves deeply in one's psyche and considerable study into charismatic methods and psychology. However, there is a simple approach. You do not need a seance and  a weird science! You need the phone, your conversational skills, and some guts. CALL!  If you are uneasy about calling, practice in front of mirror, smile. Script lines if it helps but do not read them on the phone. People will know you are simply reciting lines. Nonetheless, CALL!

There are some simple rules for calling.

1. Take notes.
2. Call at a convenient time. When they answer ask if it is a good time to call. If they are busy schedule a new time to talk when convenient for them. 
3. Disarm them. Tell them you are not calling for a job. Say that you are just touching base.
   
4. Make small talk. Discuss common points relating to your relationship with them. If you lack knowledge on something they are passionate about read an article about it before calling.
5. Keep it brief.
6. Put em on a tickler to call every three to four weeks.
7. In three to four weeks, CALL them again. 

Of course, you will need to assess each connection you contact and treat them based on strength of your relationship with them. If you've had an interview, do the interview followup process I discussed in my earlier blog postings;

• The Art of the Follow Up Part 1
• The Art of the Follow Up Part 2

The bottom line is you got to get off your duff and get out there. You need to meet and talk to people. The more you do this, the better you get at this, and the greater your opportunities!

Commentary:  I do not want to confuse people with my "Become a Good Conversationalist" post. In that post, you got to shut up and practice listening, especially during an interview. In this post, you need to get your message out and talk to many people.