After many votes have been casts, and many comments submitted, I’m happy to announce the results of the rebranding contest.

I wanted to announce this last week, but from Thursday through Sunday I was battling a computer virus that really cramped my style … alas, I think I’ve got the virus resolved and I am ready and anxious to rock and roll.

So, here were the final four options:

1. JibberJobber: Career Management 2.0
2. JibberJobber: Empowering tools for lifetime career control
3. JibberJobber: The portal to your career management
4. JibberJobber: Managing the information to manage your career

What was your favorite?

I thought the hands-down leader would be Career Management 2.0. It is cool, hip, and obviously something that means “we are done with version 1.0, and taking career management to the next level.”

I’m a software guy (my first real job in my field was developing for Simplot’s intranet, back in 1998, 1999!), so the 2.0 made a lot of sense to me.

And then I got an e-mail from Deb Dib my trusted advisor, mentor (she doesn’t know I consider her a mentor), and thought leader in the career and branding space, with this message:

For what it’s worth, my hands down, win-by-a-mile favorite brand statement for JJ is #4. The one about managing information to mange your career. It’s SO solid, says what JJ does, and hits me at a gut level.

Makes me think, if I were a job seeker, I want that — I NEED that!. The others are nice, but just not specific enough, esp #1 — a lot of people won’t even know what web 2.0 is, let alone what that means in relation to JJ.

I found that profoundly interesting. I didn’t like #4 too much because (a) it is too long to fit under (or within) my logo, and (b) it is… well, too simple — it does describe what we are doing, doesn’t paint us into a “job search” corner… but it just seems too simple, doesn’t it?

And then… I was talking to my wife about this and she said “what is 2.0? I have no idea what that means.” And I had flashbacks of all of the bosses and non-tech clients/customers who I ever worked with, and realized they, too, would look at 2.0 and have no idea what that meant. More head scratching, like what you do when you see “career toolset,” which is my current tagline. What does “career toolset” mean???

But I still loved Career Management 2.0. Haven’t you heard of web 2.0? Finance 2.0, sales 2.0, etc? It is catching on, and carries meaning, even though people are trying to be ahead of the curve and define 3.0 in many areas.

That was when I realized the voting results where going to be interesting. I was surprised at how it ended.

Here are the results:

In the voting, there was actually a tie for first place. The two winners will each split the $900, each get one lifetime premium upgrade, and both of my books in eBook format.

Congratulations to Kirsten Dixson, Partner in the Reach Branding Club, and submitter of “Career Management 2.0.” I should mention here that Kirsten has had a significant impact on my career with JibberJobber, as she invited me to speak with her at the Career Management Alliance conference last year, which was a huge credibility nod in my direction.

Congratulations also to Steve Duncan, submitter of “Managing the information to manage your career.” Steve has been following my JibberJobber journey for a while and has shot me e-mails here and there with ideas and suggestions. He actually submitted the very first entry in this contest!

How will I use two? You’ll just have to wait and see!

The second place winner is, well, Kirsten Dixson (again!). She also submitted “Empowering tools for lifetime career control” (and a few others… there were many people who submitted multiple ideas). She’ll get another lifetime license of JibberJobber, as well as two more books. Since she is connected to so many career professionals I’m guessing she’ll use these as awards, gifts or incentives for them.

I’ll be getting in touch with the other entrants in this contest this week (hopefully! I have some catchup to do from the virus last week ).

HUGE thank you to everyone who submitted, voted, and commented. I received dozens of e-mails with ideas and suggestions on where to head. On the survey I had dozens of excellent comments on what we should do, and how to best meet your needs.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Three things to share today. I’ve been struggling with a computer virus since last night and it’s really killing me. I forgot how much I hated viruses (I used to be an IT Manager and babysit an office full of PC’s). Today I even got the blue screen of death, which I probably haven’t seen on my own computer for over ten years!

(I know, a mac will solve all my problems… I know).

So, let me share something about the voting on JibberJobber’s rebranding. It is NECK-AND-NECK! I didn’t realize how close it would be, I thought that one was the clear leader… but this is a real contest! VOTE NOW since it closes tonight!

And, about US News & World Report. This comes from the Jason is bragging department… I had an interview a few weeks ago with Elaine Appleton Grant for about an hour. I’ve done interviews for “about an hour” before, only to see a half-sentence attributed to me in the final writeup. This was different. This article blew me away – not only did it cover so much ground, it, well, was mostly about what I’m doing! How cool is that?

How did I score that interview? Through networking. In fact, it was through a second degree contact, which means Elaine is a third degree contact from me. See, it gets really interesting once you get to that third and fourth degree! Let me give a huge shoutout to my buddy Mike Murray, who was that first degree contact who made this all happen – thank you Mike!!

The last few weeks we’ve spent quite a bit of time on my re-branding… I hope to wrap this up and bring a message back to you.

It’s no secret that I’m big on personal branding. I love personal branding. Why? Because with a strong, or appropriate, personal brand you can create pull-marketing, rather than push-marketing.

When I was in my job search I was a nobody. I was cliche, a commodity, a dime-a-dozen. No one had heard of me, and I was a perceived expert in … nothing.

I knew that I had expertise, and could bring value to the equation, but nobody knew that, nor did they know me. My job search was a lot of push-marketing, and it was painful.

The power of a personal brand changes all of that. Create your personal brand, be on-brand, let your brand permeate your market, and you’ll see pull-marketing. People will call you and want to get to know you better. Your job search will be completely different (be aware, this doesn’t happen overnight!).

In my JibberJobber re-branding exercise I’ve been amazed at the feedback. Not only have the votes and comments been powerful, I’ve received a lot of advice outside of the Survey Monkey poll (hey, one more day to vote – go do it now!).

How would YOU do the same thing for YOUR brand? A lot of times, in order to figure out what our brand is or could or should be it’s helpful to understand how we are perceived. This has been huge for me, and it could be huge for you.

It’s actually quite easy. There’s a company called Reach Communications Consulting, which helps professionals like you develop and execute your own personal branding strategy. One of the tools they offer is a 360 Personal Branding Assessment. For less than $30 you sign up and get started. The idea is many of your professional contacts get a survey about YOU, and they anonymously enter their thoughts on who you are… helping you understand how you are perceived.

Maybe you think you are a hotshot, CEO-type that excels in strategic planning and motivating the worker-bees.

And then you get your Reach 360 feedback and learn that most people think you are more reserved, very logical and detail oriented – perhaps you are better suited for a Project Management role right now.

Just knowing that empowers you to make a better decision for your career path, or can encourage you to get better training and mentoring to become that motivating CEO.

There’s power in knowing how you are perceived. If this is interesting to you, I encourage you to check out the Reach 360 program. Again, it’s less than $30. If you need help there are over 200 certified personal branding strategists in 21 countries who can help you. My JibberJobber partners who are certified can be found on my career expert partner page. The partners who are sponsoring this contest who are also Reach Personal Branding Strategists are:

• Deb Dib
• Walter Akana
• Megan Fitzgerald

If you do it, let me know how it goes! I think it’s a great investment!

Here are the final choices for the final taglines. Two of these got almost 20% of the votes. Which is your favorite? Go to the survey and vote for ONE.

• JibberJobber: Career Management 2.0
• JibberJobber: Empowering tools for lifetime career control
• JibberJobber: The portal to your career management
• JibberJobber: Managing the information to manage your career

Again, go vote here – voting closes Thursday at the close of business (specifically, 11:45pm MST)!

Tomorrow I’ll share what I’ve learned from the other, follow-up questions. You have told me what JibberJobber is, what it needs to be to make it better, etc. This process has been very, very interesting!

Thanks a ton to the sponsors:

• Deb Dib – Personal Branding Expert for Senior Executives
• Walter Akana – Career and Life Strategist and Personal Branding Expert
• Megan Fitzgerald – Expatriate Career and Personal Branding Expert
• Louri Russel Boilard – Executive Resume Writer and Career Psychologist/Counselor
• Makini Harvey – Career and Resume expert
• An anonymous corporate sponsor – donating The Planet Earth DVD Set
• Mark Hovind – Job Bait: The #1 Way to Land 6 and 7 Figure Jobs

If you haven’t voted yet, please head over to the Survey Monkey page to vote on your favorite taglines.

I need to mention, there were two messups. First, the very first option should be 2 different lines:

• Career Management 2.0, and
• Empowering Tools for Lifetime Career Control

Second, the very first submission I received got lost in my filing system and didn’t make it on the survey. It is:

• Managing the information to manage your career

Sorry two the people that affected…! If you want to submit a vote for either of these, please write it in a comment on PAGE 2 of the survey. To see all the other submissions, go click on the survey (and vote!).

Today’s the last day to vote… on this round. I can see some clear leaders and will do a second vote with the leaders narrowed down.

Thanks a ton to the sponsors:

• Deb Dib – Personal Branding Expert for Senior Executives
• Walter Akana – Career and Life Strategist and Personal Branding Expert
• Megan Fitzgerald – Expatriate Career and Personal Branding Expert
• Louri Russel Boilard – Executive Resume Writer and Career Psychologist/Counselor
• Makini Harvey – Career and Resume expert
• An anonymous corporate sponsor – donating The Planet Earth DVD Set
• Mark Hovind – Job Bait: The #1 Way to Land 6 and 7 Figure Jobs

Many of you may not know that I’m on Twitter. I’ve been there for quite some time. And I tweet regularly. Here’s my latest tweet:

I haven’t posted about it here for the same reason I don’t post my LinkedIn profile: I am not fishing for followers (in Twitter), connections (in LinkedIn), or friends (in Facebook).

Not that I don’t want you to follow me, I would love for you to follow me Especially if you are on Twitter (or those other networks). Interestingly enough, I share some things on Twitter that I would not share on this blog. It’s such a different platform, with such a different purpose, that it seems appropriate.

The funny thing is, I used to feel like I was cheating on you, my loyal blog reader, when I announced something on Twitter before I announced it on this blog :p How silly is that.

But I’m finally ready – if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at http://www.twitter.com/jasonalba. You can click on that link to see what I tweet about. You may be surprised to find more silly, personal stuff there. That’s just the nature of Twitter.

Have I found business value out of Twitter? Absolutely.

Have I found people enhancing their personal brand on Twitter? Without a doubt.

Is Twitter for everyone? No way.

But it’s good for me. One more question…

Will there be a “I’m on Twitter — Now What???” book? I’m not saying

I just read the book that describes so many of my feelings and experiences from when I got laid off. You may recognize the title, Bait and Switch, or the author name, Barbara Ehrenreich, from her previous best-seller “Nickel and Dimed.” I had heard of her before but didn’t have much interest in reading her stuff until a friend recommended it.

Barbara talks about how she wanted to go undercover as a white-collar job seeker to see what it’s really like. She had to doctor up her resume a bit, find some friends who would essentially lie for her (in case an employer called to check references), figure out how to hide her professional accomplishments and create a story for potential employers and networkers. I didn’t have to do any of that, of course, but aside from that, Bait and Switch was comfortable material.

Why do I love this book? Because Barbara spends 230+ pages on a journey that starts out like I did, with an attitude of “I’m getting a new job soon, and I rock, and people love me, and I’m a professional,” and of course, “I did all the right things so I’m in demand.” The journey spirals down, and ends with a surprise (spoiler at the end, don’t read any further if you don’t want to know where she landed).

Here’s a quick tour of what you’ll read:

• her experiences with a resume writer and career coaches (not positive at all – she must not have used one of my partners), and
• her experiences with a fashion/image makeover expert, and
• her experiences going to network meetings, with different takes on networking in highly religious settings (I’m guessing she’s an atheist, or at least very cynical), and networking with rednecks. And of course, networking with … losers…
• her thoughts on her own value proposition and self-worth and marketability. Like me, she started out as “hot stuff.” But got nowhere fast. And that’s the the formula for depression or other problems (check out this post, with over 100 comments, called Depression Clouds Everything), and
• and of course, her thoughts on the online job search.

I should say, you won’t walk away from this book feeling happy about your future, or good about yourself. And she will cause you to rethink the value of career professionals (coaches and resume writers), networking, networking groups, and a lot of other things that I recommend. I’m going to have a post soon about my position on this, after hearing “the other side,” but for now I’ll say that I still stand by my advice.

But reading her experiences helped me rethink who you partner with for your job search. Go back to CEO of Me, Inc…. all of these people are vendors, partners, customers, etc. You need to go into the relationship with eyes wide open, and not fully trusting.

The hard part, though, as Barbara shows throughout her book, is that getting a job may be part art, and/or part science, but it’s certainly not easy, and it needs serious strategy and execution.

When I got laid off the last thing I wanted to do was read a ton of books on how to network, or how to find a job. I didn’t have time for that, I just wanted the job.

Barbara shows what most of us will do in our job search, if we don’t know what we are doing. Oh, did I mention she spent thousands of dollars on her search? It wasn’t hard to burn through.

So here’s my recommendation – read the book if you are not emotionally fragile right now. It can be rather depressing.

If you are NOT in a job search right now, and either worry about one or think you are invincible, then this is a must read right now. Why? Because you really need to think about your future, and that next transition, and how you will get through it. And this is a realistic scenerio. Guess how it ends?

spoiler –> She fails. She doesn’t get a job offer. She gives up and goes back to her writing career. You may not have that luxury

… so prepare now.

(other bait and Switch reviews can be found at The Village Voice, STLtoday.com, Deseret Morning News, the Post Gazette, Salon, and The Seattle Times)

On Thursday I blogged about the new features we had recently released – one new feature is the ability to get Action Item reminders popup on your taskbar. You know how a new e-mail, or instant message, or something like that will cause a popup notification? Here’s what you do:

First, find a free program which takes RSS feeds and pops them up in your task bar. I tried a couple and settled on BalloonRSS. It’s the only one that actually worked the way I thought it should. Install the program, and then clear out all the feeds that it comes with (otherwise you’ll get popups on news stuff) – make sure you set it up with the instructions from this page.

Next, login to JibberJobber. As a Premium User you’ll see three new RSS feeds on the Action Items panel, choose one (or all) to put into the BalloonRSS “channel settings.” This is where you ADD any of the three feeds from JibberJobber.

Next, go into My Account, Preferences and make sure the Activate Action Items Feed is checked.

Next, create a new Action Item, and put the TIME the Action Item is due.

Now you are all set! If you have your RSS application set up correctly, you’ll get the popups notifying you, like this:

or this:

How cool is that???

I should mention, there are a few things we need to polish on this, to make your experience better. If YOU have any ideas for us, please send them to me – we love to enhance JibberJobber for you!

It’s finally here – I can share the submissions I’ve received! Thanks for your patience over the last few weeks… there’s lots to say but today I’m just going to share the submissions. Please VOTE for your favorite(s) on the Survey Monkey Page, not on the comments section of this post. Without further ado:

Career Management 2.0 Empowering tools for lifetime career control.

When you outgrow managing your career with a spreadsheet.

When you can’t manage your career with a spreadsheet.

Next-generation career management tools that cut through the clutter of career resources.

Next-generation career management tools developed by a regular job seeker who was overwhelmed just like you.

networking for smart job seekers

The Missing Link

Work & Life Links

Link Force

Link to Last

Manage Your Career, Organize Your Brain

organize – utilize – strategize

JibberJobber – The portal to your career management.

a career management center for you – before, during and after a job search.

connecting people with people, resources and the tools to survive in today’s new world of work

networking your way to your next job

your competitive advantage in the job search

your own personal CRM – a place where you can manage leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities to help you grow “You Inc”.

JibberJobber – Your online career journal

Managing your career Journey

Career Planning For LIFE

Know Who You Know

Managing Your Career Connections

Helping You Get From Jobs To A Career

Making a Career Out Of Your Connections

Connecting To Your Career

Contact Management For Career-Minded People

(Or Those Who Want To Be)

Turning ‘Who You Know’ Into A Career

How To Know ‘Who You Know’

Career Planning Tools for Getting Ahead

Career Power Tools

Power Tools For Your Career (or career management)

Manage your career. Manage your life.

Get your act together… and keep it there.

Your life at your fingertips!

At your fingertips… your contacts, your career, your life.

Central HQ for your career, your relationships, your life.

Your Career Control Center

One-stop “central control” for your career, your relationships, your life.

Your Career, More Than a Job

Get work. Don’t make work.

JibberJobber – your source for job search management tools.

Jason Alba – The strip mall of relationships!

Your internet pit stop to vroom your career

Your virtual career coach

JibberJobber: The toolset for managing your career.

JibberJobber: all the career tools all of the time

JibberJobber: targeting your career with tools to help

JibberJobber: tools for the next action in your career

JibberJobber: Career Management Mastered

JibberJobber: The only career management toolset you’ll ever need

JibberJobber: Career Management Tools Delivered

JibberJobber: Career Management Tools on Steroids

Your virtual assistant for managing

your career Your virtual assistant for your job search

Making the job of job-seeking easier

securing stream(s) of income

it’s not what you know but who knows you.

Again, please don’t vote here, in the comments. Click on over to the contest vote page and weigh in (voting closes Friday)!

Thanks to the sponsors:

• JibberJobber, of course!
• Deb Dib – Personal Branding Expert for Senior Executives
• Walter Akana – Career and Life Strategist and Personal Branding Expert
• Megan Fitzgerald – Expatriate Career and Personal Branding Expert
• Louri Russel Boilard – Executive Resume Writer and Career Psychologist/Counselor
• Makini Harvey – Career and Resume expert
• An anonymous corporate sponsor – donating The Planet Earth DVD Set
• Mark Hovind – Job Bait: The #1 Way to Land 6 and 7 Figure Jobs

I got my webmonkey account and am compiling the submissions. It’s kind of hard because some people gave one-liner tag lines, and others wrote long e-mails with a lot of rich information. It’s coming, I promise!

For now, let me share a recording from a teleseminar I did yesterday to a few hundred people. I didn’t advertise here (sorry guys!) because they only had room for 200 people, and last I heard there were over 300 registered. Who’d-a-thunk I could draw a crowd, eh?

Anyway, go check out the teleseminar recording (scroll down on this page). It was on Facebook and LinkedIn and personal branding – how cool is that? In about an hour I share all of my secrets. Well, almost all of my secrets