2012 Year in Review from Talascend IT

Happy New Year!

In this New Year, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who read and engaged with Talascend IT and me personally in 2012; be it on the blog, LinkedIn and other social media, via email, and more. I’d also like to thank those of you who have felt compelled to share the stories with others.

The beginning of the year is customarily a time for celebration of what the future holds. It’s also a time for reflection on the past year.  Keeping that in mind, I wanted to share the Top 10 posts of 2012 from Talascend IT (just in case you missed one): 

 

10.   Real relationships, not online connections, build true professional networks

Nov 27, 2012 – LinkedIn is a great networking tool. There is a difference between the number of connections you have and the number real relationships you have online. I explore the idea further in this post, which climbed quickly into the top ten.

9.      Friday Bonus Blog: Forward this blog to 10 of your friends and Microsoft will pay you 1 million dollars (and other respect destroying communications)

May 18, 2012 – Even though spawned out of the spirit of competition between a colleague and myself; the message in this post regarding email ‘dos and don’ts’ was apparently pretty important to our readers.

   

8.      The Myth About Contingent Employee Engagement

Dec 10, 2012 – Contingent workers often get a bad rap. Two conflicting studies on the subject really got me thinking about whether or not there are that many differences between contingent workers and full time employees. Apparently I am not alone, as this story ended up being one of the top posts of 2012 in only three weeks.

7.      Back it up. Back it up. The Cloud isn't as safe as 'they' say it is.

Sep 4, 2012 – I think if I wrote ‘back it up’ one more time in this post, the ‘back it up police’ would have come to arrest me. An interesting look into a subject that affects anyone with anything stored online; from pictures saved to social media to data saved on the cloud.

6.      Words Matter: The importance of semantics in business.

Nov 5, 2012 – Simple phrases can make or break a conversation. They can mean the difference between getting buy in from others and ‘losing them’ in a business setting. This post combines some of the most powerful phrases my peers and I came up with in a recent online discussion.

5.      Some Thoughts Are Better Left Untweeted: Is Social Media Eroding Self-Control?

Mar 12, 2012 – The title says it all. Do you do and say things online you wouldn’t in person? Is the increasingly common ‘take it or leave it’ attitude towards others a result of social media use? The answers to these question and more garnered this post a seat in the Top Five of 2012.

4.      Three ways to get what you really want from an interviewee.

May 14, 2012 – An article from Forbes had a very profound message about how to get the most out of candidates while interviewing. I expanded on the idea more and received a lot of great feedback as a result.  

3.      I'm sorry I missed that: Is technology affecting the way we communicate?

Oct 22, 2012 – A post I saw on LinkedIn regarding etiquette in interpersonal and professional situations really struck a chord with me. This slap on the wrist to myself is an eye-opening look into the dangers of being distracted by instant communication that today’s technology provides us; and what it can ‘say’ to others while you’re talking with them.

2.      Another Dagger in the Heart of Job Boards?: BranchOut announces $25-million in additional backing for combat with LinkedIn

Apr 23, 2012 – The topic surrounding the decline of job boards definitely sparked the most interest and comments from our readers. Some praised the data and relevancy of major job boards. Some feel I am right in my opinion that they will become less relevant and viable as we move into the future. This blog was only a few readers away from being #1 in our countdown.

       

1.      The ’Beginning of The End for Job Boards’ Kicks into High Gear…Monster Announces It’s 'For Sale.'

Mar 26, 2012 – This follow up to an earlier prediction regarding job boards’ relevancy in this day and age of social networking caused a lot of discussion; both online and offline. It was the hottest topic in 2012.

Thank you again for all of your kind words, comments, and interesting points of view regarding the posts in 2012.  Look for more articles, thoughts, and bold predictions in 2013, and all of us at Talascend IT will look forward to hearing from you.

Happy New Year! –

JK

Josh Kaplan writes on various subjects including management, information technology breakthroughs, healthcare IT recruitment and innovations, big data, IT staffing and recruitment, and technical news and trends.

Friday Bonus Blog: Forward this blog to 10 of your friends and Microsoft will pay you 1 million dollars (and other respect destroying communications)

All too often during the course of a normal business day people commit technology communication etiquette disasters without ever realizing it.  By committing even a couple of these faux pas on a regular basis can alter the way people view your professional image, lose respect in the eyes of the people you are communicating with, and potentially also lose credibility.

What other damaging email mistakes do you see?

Communication suicides are not a new phenomenon, one specific example comes to mind when I received a letter in the mail 25 years ago from a close relative who I very much looked up to.  There was a single dollar bill in this letter, along with instructions for how I could make a fortune by sending out 10 dollars of my own money to 10 different people…and eventually I would receive many times that back as the pyramid continued to grow.  I never forgot this, and my relative’s image has been tarnished ever since that this was considered such a successful way to make money that they would recruit their own family into the scheme.

As postal mail has given way to e-mail, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter a whole new slew of potential communication disasters have been created.  Before you send out that next e-mail, or go into that upcoming interview, or reach out to a prospect on Linkedin - you should crosscheck what you’re about to do with the following list of reputation killers.

When you read some of these they sound like common sense, some are even comical, yet they all happen many times every single day.  Jeff Foxworthy has a very successful routine built around “You might be a redneck if….”jokes, so with that in mind this is the “You might be ruining your reputation….” list of technological suicide communications. 

You might be ruining your reputation if….

1. You forward an e-mail that starts or ends with “If you forward this e-mail to 10 friends…”
2. You hit reply all on an e-mail where the response should only go back to the message originator, not all 500 recipients.
3. YOU SEND AN E-MAIL IN ALL CAPS
4. You try to connect to to someone on Linkedin whom you’ve never met- and you don’t write a personalized message letting them know why you are stalking them.
5. You stalk someone weekly on Linkedin looking at their profile and always showing up under the recently viewed list.
6. You haven’t talked to someone in 20 years and you try to their friend on Facebook without sending any kind of personal message.
7. You try to friend someone on Facebook who you vaguely knew 20 years ago and try to make them your friend on Facebook so you can see their pictures.
8. You keep trying to be someone’s friend on Facebook no matter how many times they hit ignore.
9. You send a txt using more emoticons than real worlds.
10. You BCC someone on an e-mail.  (There is no good use for BCC)
11. You CC someone on an e-mail in a conversation or topic they have never been included in and know nothing about.
12. You forward an e-mail saying “FYI”, and nothing else after it- showing that you have not put any thought into what is important for the recipient to pay attention to.
13. You send an e-mail that says “Got it” or “I’m on it” as a response to a task.
14. You forward any e-mail that purports to be a dying child’s last wish to reach 10,000 people.
15. You tell someone how they can make $1000’s of dollars working at home, or turning their computer into a money making machine.
16. You ask someone if they really think that you are the sole benefactor of your long lost unknown uncle in Nigeria.
17. You come into an interview and your phone ringer is the latest Nickelback song.

I encourage you to please leave a comment with any items you think should be on this list!