Thom Singer is one of my favorite people. He is an author, speaker, super networker, motivator, and all-around cool guy. His daughter had the same (or a very similar) surgery that I had back in 1973/1974, and Thom and his wife have dedicated a portion of their speaking earnings to raising money for a foundation in his daughter’s name.

Thom is… everything that I wish Keith Ferrazzi was. Approachable, nice, and talks to the “little people,” like me.

Without further ado, here’s Thom’s EXCELLENT list of better networking posts. The images to the right are Thom’s books, linked to Amazon for more information.

• Tip 66: People Do Business With People They Know and Like
• Tip 65: Don’t Be Full Of Yourself
• Tip 64: Make It So
• Tip 63: Go All The Way
• Tip 62: Own Your Mistakes
• Tip 61: Make Contacts At Conventions, Seminars and Conferences
• Tip 60: Unlock Your Inner Entrepreneur
• Tip 59: High Expectations
• Tip 58: Do Not Network Behind A Wall
• Tip 57: Keep It Short
• Tip 56: Manufacture Your Own Luck
• Tip 55: Connect The Dots
• Tip 54: Reconnect With Old Friends and Business Associates
• Tip 53: Keep Your On-line Profiles Up To Date
• Tip 52: Get People Talking About You
• Tip 51: Be A Catalyst For Good
• Tip 50: Recharge Your Batteries
• Tip 49: Look For The Good In Others
• Tip 48: How To Network With Whom You Want
• Tip 47: Clean The Slate
• Tip 46: Invest In Your Future
• Tip 45: Stop Being Greedy
• Tip 44: Get To Know Your Competition
• Tip 43: Take Ownership Of Your Career
• Tip 42: Think Abundantly
• Tip 41: Avoid Negative Words
• Tip 40: Express Your Appreciation
• Tip 39: Networking Is Not Enough.
• Tip 38: Friends Are Fantastic, But Evangelist Change The World.
• Tip 37: You Are A Brand.
• Tip 36: Show Up to Build Your Brand
• Tip 35: Beyond Image
• Tip 34: Opportunities Come From People
• Tip 33: Creativity!
• Tip 32: Why Write A Blog
• Tip 31: Network One Step At A Time
• Tip 30: Intuitive Networking
• Tip 29: “Hey!”
• Tip 28: Sing Their Praises
• Tip 27: Don’t Keep Score
• Tip 26: Walk The Talk
• Tip 25: Be Extraordinary
• Tip 24: Little Selfless Actions Matter
• Tip 23: Tigers Live With Tigers
• Tip 22: Sleep, Eat Right and Exercise
• Tip 21: Be A Resource For Others
• Tip 20: Work Together On A Project
• Tip 19: Meet Your Virtual Network
• Tip 18: Keep Relationships Alive
• Tip 17: Take Some Time Off
• Tip 16: Cool Like A Cucumber
• Tip 15: Make A List, Check It Twice
• Tip 14: Soar With Eagles
• Tip 13: Be A Connector
• Tip 12: Don’t Discredit Any Gathering
• Tip 11: Develop Your Public Speaking Skills
• Tip 10: Warm Up Your Cold Calls
• Tip 9: Excel In Your Field, Regardless Of Your Industry
• Tip 8: Smile
• Tip 7: Networking Inside Your Company
• Tip 6: Notice Who Is In The Paper
• Tip 5: Reach Out One More Time
• Tip 4: Get Their Name Right
• Tip 3: Have Memorable Conversations
• Tip 2: Always Carry Business Cards
• Tip 1: Put Yourself Into The World

Congrats Thom, for finishing this huge series. I knew you would finish it but I still thought you were crazy for biting off such a big project!

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)

New York Times Mentions JibberJobber and my books

Welcome to New York Times readers, who came across JibberJobber (and my books) from a mention in yesterday’s Career Couch column. Huge thanks to Eilene Zimmerman for the opportunity to share my thoughts to her readers. Of course, it’s an excellent column, talking about what to do in an extended (yuck) job search.

One of the new signups from the NYT article asked if JibberJobber is like a virtual career coach… here’s my answer:

Think of JibberJobber as a Salesforce.com for your job search. It’s all private (not a social network), where you put in your network contacts (import them from LinkedIn, Outlook, etc.) and track things to actually nurture a relationship (rank the relationships, add notes, log entries, action items, etc.). Put your target companies and do the same thing (notes, action items, etc.) Log who you meet in each company so you can “network your way into the company,” put in your elevator pitches, and all that. Basically, what a career coach would tell you to do, you do here, instead of a spreadsheet or a spiral notebook.

Of course, if you are looking for a career coach, I partner with the best in the industry. You can find my partners here.

Wired Magazine’s How To Wiki Reporter Writes about “Getting Ahead with LinkedIn”

I did a fun interview with a Wired Magazine writer Lora Shinn. Wired magazine? Who’d-a-thunk that a guy like me would get any ink there. I didn’t even know Wired had a wiki, and I’m usually not a proponent of wiki’s, but guess what? Lifehacker picked it up. Me in Lifehacker? Amazing. Very flattering.

Newsday Asks for LinkedIn and Facebook Strategy Makeovers

I talked to three Newsday readers and coached them on how to get more out of LinkedIn and Facebook. Of course, there wasn’t room to write it all, but it was an entire article. Thanks to Patricia Kitchen for the idea and opportunity to be the coach for this article, it was a blast. As a bonus, I hear the printed version actually had my picture in it… that might be a first

JibberJobber Rebranding Contest

Today is the last day of THE CONTEST. I’ll share one submission with you… it’s from my dad, so he’s automatically disqualified from winning

JIBBERJOBBER - securing stream(s) of income - it’s not what you know but who knows you.

I’ve received some great submissions, which I’ll start posting this week. Voting is coming soon!

What an excellent year this has been. Good think I wasn’t good enough to get a job on my own

Ted Demopoulos and I have been e-mailing for a few months now. He recently e-mailed me to let me know that he is recommending my LinkedIn book I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? in his new eBook called Effective Internet Presence.

I checked out this book on personal branding and was impressed, and knew that I should share it with you. It’s a simple, free download… you can go to his website, Effective Internet Presence, or you can just click here to download it.

This eBook has a very casual style but it’s thirty nine pages are packed full of information that you should be interested in.

The premise of the book is something like (in my own words) “what happens when people Google your name?” Or your product, or your service, or brand, or company name? For a quick and fun test, try this free online identity calculator by the folks behind Career Distinction (the bible of personal branding).

If you get no results, it’s probably not good.

If you get negative results, it’s definitely not good.

If you get results from someone that has the same name as you do, that’s not necessarily good. This is the same issue that Bill Arruda (aka, William Arruda), Scott Allen, and David Scott (aka, David Meerman Scott) have/had. I kind of have it a tiny bit with Jessica Alba, but she’s so well known that it doesn’t affect my brand.

Anyway, Ted Demopoulos has put together a very easy read full of resources that you should know about, and ideas for your strategy. I even picked up two different web resources that I’m going to investigate further, based on his recommendations.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out! You’ll have it read in thirty minutes!

We’re making good progress on THE BOOK! We now have a cover (see below), we’ve finished the second round of editing, we have the foreword and afterword and dozens of endorsements. The feedback has been phenomenal - people put in hours to give us pointers and quotes.

THANK YOU!

Jesse Stay has been a delight to work with throughout the entire project. Jesse knows his Facebook stuff and is very busy consulting and developing, so I feel quite privileged to have been able to team up with him for this.

I should mention that this is not a career book - it’s a more holistic view, helping you get professional or business value out of Facebook. I figure there are plenty of people who read this blog who are trying to unravel this social network mess - just to let you know, I don’t plan on doing any more books on any other social networks. LinkedIn and Facebook are good enough for me

You can preorder THE BOOK at the publisher’s page here.

You can also sign up for the very generous affiliate program on the same page.

Of course there is a “blog behind the book,” just like with the LinkedIn book blog.

Here’s the cover… kind of the same and kind of different than what you saw on the LinkedIn book:

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

Here’s a slight detour from the job search, career management or networking books that I usually review. I got a copy of GUST at last year’s Successful and Outstanding Bloggers conference and have had a number of communications with the author, Timothy L. Johnson.

I’ve only read one other business book like GUST, which is written like a novel, complete with characters and drama. Have you ever read The Goal? I think every business student in my era had to read it in their senior year. It was a cool book, and I was impressed to see a VP or HR at a $3B company with The Goal on his bookshelf. Anyway, back to GUST.

My first impression as I’m reading this book is “man, this office setting is so draining that there is no way I would work here!” But then I remembered how long I stayed at my draining job. No matter how bad things got (and they got bad), I always thought they would get better.
I think a lot of people put up with bad jobs for a variety of reasons - fear of the job search, is the grass really greener on the other side (pretty sad thought, if all jobs suck as bad as “this one”), worried about tarnishing resume, worried about not returning any loyalty that you felt from your company (training, transfer, etc.), worried about letting your boss or coworkers down (either because you respect them or because of peer pressure), concern about a bad employment market (will I be able to land again), etc.

And so we stay in poor work conditions.

GUST is about office politics, not any of these other things that make a job miserable. The main character is a consultant brought in to manage a project to completion while unraveling the political problems, and help the CEO understand what needs to change. And the company is a mess.

The consultant walks her team through various aspects of identifying politics, the reasons behind political behavior, and tactics to work around this behavior (to keep your sanity and keep the project moving forward).

Timothy L. Johnson does a great job of making my stomach churn, while giving me tool after tool, technique after technique, and arming me to prepare with office politics.

If you are currently living with office politics, and want to figure out how to weather them, pick up a copy of GUST. Check out Scot Herrick’s review here.

Progress on I’m on Facebook — Now What??? has been humming along. Jesse and I have sent the pre-edited book to over 80 bloggers and journalists, and the feedback we have received is very helpful. Most of it has been extremely positive, and a few people have replied with some major changes but very helpful all the same. I am nervous to dive in and change a bunch of stuff this late in the game, but will make some changes for sure.

We almost have a cover designed, which should be pretty cool. It’s really interesting how many details and decisions go into the book, and I’m expecting to get feedback on even the most minute detail. Fortunately the decision-making team communicates very well and we are able to differentiate between small issues and large issues.

We’ve also received the foreword from Lee Lorenzen, who is the first Facebook-only VC and a very big name in the Facebook space, created the book’s blog, and a “Page” that you can join as a fan (to keep up to date on the book progress).

The biggest question we still get is the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn, as far as how you would use them. Many people say “I use LinkedIn for professional networking and Facebook for family and social networking.” Not much of an argument there… how in the world would you do “family networking” on LinkedIn???

But there is definitely a compelling reason to learn about how Facebook can help you professionally, from You, Inc. to your role as an employee to your own business venture… Facebook has a lot to offer. And that’s what this book is all about.

The editor just sent me a revision in the Table of Contents, but here’s the old one, with the gist of what we’re writing about:

Foreword - Lee Lorenzen
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Getting Started
Chapter 2 - Getting Involved
Chapter 3 - Commonly Asked Questions
Chapter 4 - Applications
Chapter 5 - Privacy
Chapter 6 - Your Facebook Strategy
Chapter 7 - Facebook for Businesses
Chapter 8 - Facebook No-no’s
Chapter 9 - Additional Resources
Conclusion
Appendix

More information soon, once the cover is finalized we’ll have a page to pre-order the ebook and the hard copy at discounted rates!

My first book was so fun that I decided I just had to do another one!

Actually, one of the main reasons I wrote I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? was to help people wrap their brains around LinkedIn. After spending the last few months receiving e-mails, doing interviews and a few webinars, I think I hit the nail on the head.

And I got a fair amount of e-mail asking (a) when’s the next book, and (b) would I do something on Facebook?

Of course, my response was “na, I’m not crazy enough to do this twice!”

Apparently, I am crazy enough.

This time I’m teaming up with Facebook expert Jesse Stay, who has successfully sold one Facebook application and is working on a few others, as well as consulting with businesses to help them devise a Facebook strategy. Jesse is a friend who I met at the Utah Blogger Dinners, a programmer, and an all-around cool guy. I’m very pleased to be able to work with him, as he really brings a lot to this project.

We would really like your help and involvement with this second book. If you have any tips, tricks, warnings, suggestions, questions, etc. please shoot them over to us. If you think you can contribute to the book in any way, send your stuff asap. We’re hoping to begin the first editing phase this weekend, so there isn’t much time left.

Crazy, yes, that’s how I would describe this

I just finished The Savvy Gal’s Guide to Online Networking (or What Would Jane Austen Do?) by Diane K. Danielson and Lindsey Pollak.

What an excellent primer on all things virtual networking! Here’s what I liked about this book: The way it was written, and the content they included, is perfect for a non-techno-nut like my mom. She could pick this up, go through the entire thing, understand it all and walk away with a plan or strategy to effectively use online networking tools.

Here’s what I really liked about this book: even though it feels like a primer, with very easy-to-read and easy-to-follow descriptions, suggestions and instructions, I learned a number of things. Now, I’m not saying that I already knew everything so you are hard-pressed to impress me, but there were things in every chapter that I thought “oh yeah! I really need to do that for JibberJobber!”

After reading this book you’ll have the solid understanding you need to make better use of technology in your networking, including:

• really, how to write a good networking e-mail message
• using newsletters effectively, and what to watch out with so you aren’t pegged as a spammer
• press releases and other things to be more findable on Google
• classmates, friendster and myspace to get various jobs done (ya, they are older than LinkedIn and Facebook, but they are still around, and they still serve a different purpose)
• important information on putting together a professional profile on a networking site
• blogging, and one of my favorites, blog networking (!!)
• internet forums, and listservs

Diane and Lindsey chose to have a strong flavor Jane Austen / chick-flick feel to this. I can’t even name one Jane Austen book, and I’m not much for chick flicks, but it was fun to shake up the book with this theme (it really helped make the entire book not boring :)).

The blog to accompany the book is called Savvy Gal Blog.

You can find out more information about Diane K. Danielson at her Top Shelf Reading Picks (an Entrepreneur.com blog), the DWC Women’s DISH blog, and her company website, the Downtown Women’s Club.

You can learn more about Lindsey Pollak at her website, LindseyPollak.com, or her blog.

And of course, you can get the book on Amazon.

A few weeks ago I sent a copy of “I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???” to Bob Sutton, who I’ve come to admire and respect over the last year. I asked for an endorsement, if he thought it was worthy of one. Here was his reply:

“I was ready to abandon my LinkedIn account before I read Jason Alba’s concise and remarkably useful guide. Jason writes with remarkable clarity, provides one useful tip after another about how to use it most effectively, and unlike so many users guides that offer breathless and uncritical hype, Jason candidly explains the virtues and drawbacks of Linkedin’s features. Beyond that, Jason has such deep experience with the web that the book contains hundreds of broader lessons about how to get the most of the web: I learned an enormous amount from this little gem.”

Robert Sutton, Stanford Professor and author of The No Asshole Rule

I fell out of my chair. And when I got back up and read it again, I fell out of my chair again.

I e-mailed Bob and thanked him for such a kind review, and he e-mailed me back with a very encouraging, supportive e-mail that reinforced this review. It was unbelievable.

My first brush with Bob Sutton was when I read a book review by Kent Blumberg about his book. It was an excellent review so I was a fan right away. But when I started learning more about his publishing story, and how the Harvard Press wouldn’t print his book unless he changed his title, and that he refused to change the title, I gained more respect for him.

Then I started reading more reviews about his book from bloggers. Bob Sutton hit a major hot spot for the working class around the world, and has continued to evangelize the message. I’m sure that what he is doing has freed or empowered people to get the self-confidence to deal with rotten boss situations, as scared as they may be.

Thank you, Bob Sutton, for encouraging me and helping me with my first book. I’m really a nobody in your world, shoot, I’m the guy that couldn’t even get a job interview and was out of work for too long. Writing a review like this, and even reading the book was above and beyond cool, and I’ll appreciate it for a long time!

There are other reviews that have come in since the last time I posted about it, which I’ll post soon! If you are interested in learning more about “I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???” you can click here to find pricing on the hard copy or the soft copy.