Confessional

So, slapped wrist number 1: Nearly a fortnight ago, I was not only late for a business lunch, but also failed to write and thank the generous person who bought me it. This was outrageous – completely out of character for me, but evidence that I am not pretending that I get it right all the time.

And, slapped wrist number 2: Three weeks ago, I was invited to attend another breakfast meeting and to speak about my work. All went well, though there was perhaps a slight mismatch for one individual who seemed to think I was going to be pitching for work rather than talking about the underlying nature of the work I do. However, I have the list of delegates on my desk and I haven’t followed up.

Learning – I seem to have a little pattern emerging here… When something hasn’t worked perfectly, I seem to have a problem doing what I know I should do – write and thank people regardless.

We all do it. We return from a meeting of some kind, with no specific thing to follow up but bundle of business cards in our pocket. We take them out and pop them on our desk and do nothing with them. We kid ourselves. We dream of having some super-gizmo that will scan them, add the details into a wonderful database, and then… nothing happens.

It’s time to do something about it. You need to be systematic. If you ‘blog’, have a newsletter, or write regularly, then you need these people on the distribution list for that. If you don’t, then you simply need them on your LinkedIn contact list.

With this in mind, the follow-up is really straightforward.

You only REALLY need three pieces of information from their card – their name, their email address and their contact phone number or SkypeID. Of course, you can keep other bits but you don’t really need them these days as so much information is available online.

• Keep a simple, ongoing, handwritten list of those three pieces of information – just to keep things simple. You’ll tick it once to say you’ve sent an email. Second, to say that you’ve added them to any mailing list that you maintain.  Strike out the details when you’ve sent a connection request on LinkedIn.
• Have a standard block of text in Evernote (or a text file if you haven’t yet discovered the joy of using Evernote). Think of this as your postcard…

Dear NAME

I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet at the networking event TODAY.

Every week or so, I write a business-related article. Rather than send a message about each one, I have a weekly digest. I’d like to add you to my list for this, if you don’t mind. (You can always unsubscribe at any time.)

I find the best way to get to know people is to have a one-to-one chat either in person or by phone and wondered if we could possibly schedule something over the next couple of weeks? Other than Tuesdays, I can fit in something most days, so I wondered if there would be a good time for you?

In recent years, LinkedIn seems to have become one of the best ways of keeping up to date with people’s business moves and interests, so I also wondered if we could connect there? I’ll send you a connection request in the next few hours.

With best wishes…

• Send this email within 48hrs, adjusting the TODAY for YESTERDAY if necessary.
• Log on to LinkedIn and send them a straightforward connection request. I usually prefer to customise these as the LI script is pretty awful, but as you’ve already warned them it’s on its way…

And that’s all there is to it, really. Of course, you can get more fancy, but there’s really no need – a significant improvement on where you were.

Oh, and one last thing – NEVER TRY TO SELL SOMEONE SOMETHING OR TO ASK FOR A JOB DIRECTLY. That isn’t the point!

Best wishes
Graham

The other week, I was running a course for a health organisation. The participants had been told that they should attend. They accepted that it was necessary to refresh their skills from time-to-time and so arrived but not really expecting to learn anything. At the end of the day, two of them came up to me – when they’d introduced themselves at the outset they’d made it clear that they were both highly qualified and experienced. They both wanted to say how much they’d enjoyed the day, how they’d felt embraced by me and by involving them in the delivery of the training, they’d felt more respected than they often did at work. We had a hug, shed a little tear, agreed that the system was a little silly, and went about our ways.

Too often though, it seems to me that respect for the individual is lost by bureaucratic systems that we pretend are there to promote professionalism and protect clients and customers. It’s something I have often encountered in corporate OD (organisation development) but it seems to be particularly true in professional development arenas.

When I was 17, I’d qualified as both a swimming and lifesaving teacher, which meant that I could ‘sign off’ Duke of Edinburgh Award forms for others but because I hadn’t registered for the Award before I sat my exams (which you had to do as a swimming teacher in those days), I couldn’t get one myself. A friend and I regularly used to go on long-distance walks – including bivouacking overnight – yet, again, because we’d not registered for the Award we couldn’t include these retrospectively. Our school encouraged us to engage in ‘social action’, and yet, my many teenage hours voluntarily teaching swimming and doing Red Cross first-aid duties were not eligible because I hadn’t registered first.

The DoE system has, at last, been changed but not, I’d argue, for the better. Now, you start out by saying what you’ll do for the next few weeks (and I mean weeks), do it, and get someone to sign it off. There’s no minimum standard – you just have to say what you’ll do. So, the other day I was confronted by a mother whose child had done a fraction of the amount of work that others would do, but because the child had not said it would do anything in particular in the first place, I was expected to sign it off regardless.

The other month, I attended a “professional development day” for one of my ‘professions’. The content was interesting, though not really that developmental, and a lot of time was devoted to networking with our competitors (sorry, I mean ‘peers’) but it was all OK because we were issued with a fancy A4 certificate for our CPD records.

This kind of situation, where the bureaucracy overtakes the learning, seems to permeate quasi-professions. The real professions (medicine, law, accountancy, and architecture) have their fill of paperwork, I’m sure, but they don’t depend on the ‘apprentice’ registering first, THEN gaining experience, THEN documenting their learning, and only THEN being formally accepted. Instead they work in parallel.

A little while ago, I sat in on a course sponsored by the local government, for entrepreneurs starting up their first business. It was the main component of a package intended to boost enterprise in the local area. It involved ten sessions spread over three months with a quite detailed, though extremely inflexible and prescriptive, structured approach. (Interestingly, every page was splattered with copyright marks.) I’m far from convinced that if anyone worked religiously through the manual and course their business would be any more successful than any other. If nothing else, luck and networking – two essentials of successful enterprise – weren’t mentioned. It was run in the evening. An interesting choice – to run a course on business in the evening – which must say something about how core it was seen to running a successful enterprise and about the organisers attitude to life-work balance. Anyway, at the end of the third or fourth session, when questions were invited, someone raised their arm and asked; “Do we get a certificate at the end of the course?” I felt my heart sink, and judging from the groan around the room I wasn’t alone. But perhaps this individual had cause to enquire….?

I find myself in a strange position today, being asked to present a portfolio of my experience to an organisation simply so that they can decide whether to confer on me their ‘professional membership’, when the reality is that I’ve been an accepted and practicing member of one of their competitors for some years.

So, that’s the gripe. But the system isn’t going to change. What have I learnt along the way?

Well, if you are considering doing something developmental – such as taking even a very straightforward training course – think VERY hard beforehand and ask yourself how you intend using it well into the future. If you might conceivably want to do so for quasi-professional purposes, then do your research – find out beforehand how that discipline manages itself, whether certain activities are accepted, and whether certain providers are somehow favoured above others. Of course, it’s hard to look into the future that far, but where possible, if you’re going to spend money and invest effort you might as well make sure that you get a double- or even triple- whammy benefit.

I often counsel executives considering doing an MBA. The same argument applies. How are you expecting it to help? Does your particular profession (eg business sector) respect people with this qualification? If you see it as a building block in your career – decide on the career first, then choose the course. You might be surprised how many people see an MBA as an opportunity to create a career transition without thinking where they want to go – instead, they see it as an opportunity to stop doing what they have been doing. If it is relevant, then fine, but if there’s some doubt – do more research before signing up. If you are wanting to satisfy your own intellectual needs, then many people don’t realise just how many other options there are that they could pursue.

When choosing one provider over another, look carefully at the content and the process by which it’s delivered. If it appears to be a hoop leaping exercise rather than a genuine learning experience, ask yourself whether that’s really what you want. If the methods resonate with you, great – but if they seem more concerned with validating the provider than embedding new material in you, ask twice.

Best wishes
Graham

In the late 90s and early 00s, the bits of plastic gave way to software based solutions, but many of these too were a little Heath Robinson-esque and quite expensive to boot. The legacy of this persists today with the extortionate rates that mobile phone operators charge for roaming – especially when you are simply accessing your own network through one owned by the same operator in a different country.

Back then the warrior on the road, often had to resort to an internet cafe, and to use an unbelievably slow and clunky web-mail site to get at their messages.

Most of you reading this are probably saying; “So what?” Well in the last two weeks, I’ve been in conversation with three travelling consultants who were struggling to keep going with their old style systems and hadn’t realised that there’s a much easier approach almost instantly available to them.

THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – so, if you’re still a little bemused as to why I’m writing this, I’d just close the message and go on to another one! I do appreciate that this is a little… basic. I have also tried to keep it simple and may have blurred a couple of definitions – thanks for noticing, but don’t feel you need to discuss them here!

So… for the rest of us:

You already have an email service provider – some will be the standard service provided by most internet service providers, ISPs (eg BT Connect), others are generic (eg Demon), but most are specific to a domain name that you (or your institution) have registered (eg grahamwilson.org). (These personal domains are so inexpensive (c£6 per year) that anyone can have one. ) Some people don’t realise that all of these can be made to work with any system – you don’t have to stick with the one that was installed on your laptop, or was described in the set-up of your wifi. Similarly, just because your ISP gave you an email address you don’t need to use it!

The tool that an increasing number of people prefer, regardless of where or how they are accessing their email, IS a webmail provider, but it’s one that’s so well developed that it has become the ‘email client’ of choice for many, many people. An ‘email client’ is the generic term used to describe software programs that allow you to access, read, store, compose and send, emails. Previously popular examples were Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. These were entirely based on your computer.

The tool that people tend to prefer these days is provided by Google. With the exception of a few trouble-spots around the world, Google (www.google.com) is accessible almost everywhere. Gmail does everything that Outlook or Thunderbird do – it just does them all a little better.

You don’t HAVE to use their browser (Google Chrome) though there may be a few techie benefits from doing so. Thus, if you prefer Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla’s Firefox or whatever, that’s fine too.

To get started, you just go to the Google site – yes, the one that you visit every day to do searches. Look at the black strip at the top and you’ll see one of the options is Gmail. Go there and sign up for a personal email account. PLEASE bear in mind my comments in previous posts about selecting a professional sounding email address – it isn’t critical here, as no-one will necessarily see the gmail email address, but it still makes sense.

Unlike other webmail services, Gmail is available both online and offline. Your messages are held centrally, but they synchronise with copies on any other machine that you wish to use. Once you are up and running, email can be synchronised between the two so you need never be without anything. I have all of mine sychnronised with my laptop, 12 month’s worth on my Android tablet, and the last 300 on my smartphone.

Messages with attachments can be stored within the Gmail system, so you don’t need to download them all to a folder structure on your machine. What’s more, the Gmail storage system is like all others in allowing you to store messages in folders, but it also allows you to attach simple ‘tags’ to them – this makes it easy to find messages on the same topic that have been filed across many different folders. Yes, there’s a learning curve, but the flexibility of this online, cloud-based, email system is profoundly better than anything else that you’ll have encountered.

Because Gmail has become so endemic, it is available on most ‘platforms’ – thus you can access it through Windows (whatever version), the iOS used by IPads etc, Android – the standard for smartphones and tablet computers, and Linux – the operating system that’s very popular with institutions. You simply access your Gmail from ANY device and it will synchronise as much information as you wish among them – so you can work on ‘that’ report using any device.

Nowadays, most people already have a couple of email addresses – in some cases, many – usually one personal and one for work. The beauty of the Gmail interface, is that you can attach several different email accounts (reflected in different email addresses) to the one system. When Google retrieves the messages from each account, by default it puts them all in the same ‘inbox’ but it tags (labels) them so that they are easy to find and distinguish. You can tell it if you’d like to have them go in different folders.

You simply set each account up in exactly the same way that you would have with Outlook in the past, using POP3 settings to do so. The POP3 settings are usually easy to find somewhere on the site of any email provider and they consist of the username, password, outgoing email server and incoming email server. (Gmail comes with a tool to find these automatically for many service providers.)

Gmail uses the POP3 settings to contact your original email service provider(s) to see if there are any new messages waiting for you, and then copies these to the Gmail system. It does this very frequently so there’s rarely any delay in getting new ones. Thunderbird and Outlook check in the same way, though they tend to do so every 15 minutes by default.

One of the options for most email clients, such as Gmail, is whether to keep your emails in their original inbox once you have transferred them. In the past, working with something like Outlook on your own laptop, you might have not deleted them for safety in case there was a glitch in the transfer. The risks are probably less with Gmail, but I’ve got mine set to delete everything after 30 days – that way there’s a safety margin without building up a huge store that you’ll never access.

Once they are linked you can ‘compose’ messages in Gmail and then send them from any of your accounts. You can set up different default fonts, signatures, etc for each.

So, in a nutshell:

1. Register for a Gmail account
2. Set up your existing accounts through the Gmail interface using POP3

Once it’s up and running, you can import your existing address book(s) to Google Contacts, and you can import your existing emails from Outlook or Thunderbird to Gmail. Or you can breath lightly at having a new greenfield structire and can redesign your filing system!

I realise that this isn’t the usual kind of blog entry, but I hope it’ll help one or two of you.

Best wishes

Graham Wilson
the-confidant.info | executive-post.info

The article offers some useful tips on how to come across the best. The last of these is to test your system with a friend first. I’d reinforce this strongly.

A few other things to consider…

Without going over the top, it might be worth creating a small home-studio for business oriented video calls – they are becoming far more common and a firm that interviews this way is probably going to rely on this technology during its day-to-day operations too. Think about removing distractions, a simple cloth backdrop (I’ve used white calico for mine), and away from the hustle and bustle of the home.

A high definition web-cam with a wired connection to the USB port, will produce far better quality images than the built in camera on most laptops.

Webcams don’t have to be mounted on top of the computer either. Consider setting yours up at an angle slightly above, to one side, and forward of you. Mine is mounted about three feet away on an adjacent bookcase.

Positioned in this way you can be seen to be following the interview carefully on your laptop at a desk or table, without picking up every wrinkle, baggy eyes, and double chins.

While pundits often say that eye contact is essential, my experience is that a more remote image that shows you in a professional environment, clean, tidy and well presented overall creates a strong impression.

While a few people might like to make themselves look like a fighter pilot or Formula 1 mechanic, headsets do not flatter anyone. If the speakers on your laptop aren’t that good, then get a pair of powered extensions, though usually this isn’t necessary.

What is also worth investing in, is a simple desktop microphone. Ideally a unidirectional microphone, this will cut out background noise from the room, but also much more importantly hums from fans and electrical interference from the computer. I’ve experimented with quite a few over the years, but my favourite is a really simple one made by Trust.

Finally, some lighting. For this kind of set-up, all you really need is good domestic lights. However, I’ve found that a reasonably bright desklamp (mine’s an Anglepoise fitted with a very low energy LED bulb) on the desk in front of me, makes sure that the camera doesn’t have to adjust dynamically for low light and so produce unpredictable dark shadows etc.

Once you have the system set up, try it out with a friend and make sure that angles are flattering, backgrounds simple, and that the sound levels are good. The last thing you want to be playing around with during an interview are the settings of your computer.

Best wishes

Graham Wilson
the-confidant.info | executive-post.info

).

However, I certainly noticed an upsurge in people registering on my own website to download my senior executive job-hunt book and receive the free tips that follow.

If you were one of those, PLEASE don’t forget that I also offer a free conversation to review your job hunt so far.

Best wishes
Graham