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College Advice for High School Seniors: Interview With Nick Brody, Communication Professor

May 14, 2014 By Tiffany Sunday

Last week, I visited with Nick Brody, Assistant Professor at the University of Puget Sound. He teaches Communication specializing in technology and social media.

My undergraduate degree is in Communication, and I was curious to hear his perspective on the current trends, and how social media is changing interpersonal communication.

Today, we have a wide selection of digital tools that enable us to share information instantly with family, friends and co-workers. These tools are interwoven in our lives, and most students are connected 24/7/365.

To help his students become more aware of this integration, he assigned a weekend project. The students had to spend one day completely off-grid and then the second day, they had to document every time they used a digital communication tool and its purpose.

To complete, the assignment, the students were required to write a paper analyzing their experience and document what they had learned.

His goal was for students to acknowledge how many times they use social media and digital communication, and that it was okay to take tech breaks.

The majority of our conversation focused on how social media and digital communication is a tool, not a means to an end. His students use mobile devices and apps to coordinate meeting times, manage projects and connect for social events. He believes that mobile technology will continue to influence our communication behaviors.

Digital technology and social media networks are a more efficient communication tool than the old school paper notes I passed in high school. The biggest difference today, for students, is that our digital communication is saved for a very long time on a server somewhere in the Midwest.

Last year, I wrote about our digital icebergs and how this information can be seen by others. Students’ messages can be accessed and shared publicly with an organization or employer without their knowledge or approval.

I asked Professor Brody what advice he would offer high school graduates to help them prepare for college.

Here’s what he had to say:

College professors review new student social media profiles to learn about their personalities and goals. Brody said “our social media profiles provide the world with a perception of who we are in real life. Individuals make decisions about us based on these perceptions.”
Use digital technology and social media to enhance your education. He suggested that students use an iPad to take smarter notes, stay in communication with professors, and to start building a professional network now instead of later.
Being professional on and offline matters, students should be aware of their digital behavior and the information they are posting. In college, your communication should start to mature and have a professional tone. Students with strong interpersonal and digital communication skills will have an advantage. Most problems occur because of either miscommunication or none at all.
Understand that digital technology and social media networks are communication tools and learn how to use these tools to your benefit.
Develop strong communication skills – this includes both on and offline. Possessing the ability to effectively convey your thoughts in writing, speaking or talking to a group of individuals is a skill that all employers seek.
Be aware that everything you post online is saved for a very long time. Keep in mind that your classmates, professors and potential employers can view your social media postings and comments.
Most importantly, be yourself and be authentic. Avoid creating an online personality that does not align with your real life.

I would like to add one more bit of advice for our graduating seniors – develop skills and gain experience that will enhance your innate talent.

Last month, I visited with Andres Traslavina, Global Talent Recruiter for Whole Foods Corporate. He is experienced recruited and has worked for noted Fortune 500 companies. Andres stated that the best employees are the individuals that have built their skills and experience around their inherent talent.

He said many times we place our ladder on the wrong wall and spend time focusing on areas that will offer little benefit in the future.

Today, we are so hyper-focused on convincing our high school graduates to major in the perfect degree that we forget there is no guarantee of employment when they graduate. As I discussed in my recent book, focusing on the wrong degree can create problems for students, as well.

Both Professor Brody and Andres provide graduates with solid advice: develop strong communication skills that will serve you well in work and life, and focus on developing your innate talent.

Are You Ready for Generation Like?

February 20, 2014 By Tiffany Sunday

Frontline presented Douglas Rushkoff’s documentary Generation Like which examines how important social media is to our teens and how their digital world is dominated by the number of “likes”, “retweets”, and “shares”.

One teen interviewed by Rushkoff summarized the essence of her generation with five simple words – “it’s all about the like”.

According to a Pew Research Study conducted in 2012, approximately 95% of all teens in the United States are online. Teens are connected via their devices to their circle of friends and each day they post photos and comments while ingesting a steady constant flow of digital information.

Even kids at young as 8 years old have social media profiles and compete with their older siblings for “likes” on YouTube or Facebook.

What is different about Generation Like (kids ages 12 – 17) is that they are the first fully intergraded social media generation. These pre-teen and teens do not know a world without Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. They are digitally smarter and savvier than previous generations and most teens have a better understanding of social media than their parents.

Teens use the same social media marketing techniques that they have learned from corporate marketers. Using this knowledge, they develop and leverage their social media self brands with the same level of marketing proficiency as professionals. They are constantly posting content, curating their image and building their circles of influence.

Social media networks have replaces shopping malls of the 80s and 90s as the primary place for teens to hang out with friends. When online, they feel empowered and have the freedom to speak their minds.

The positive side to the teens’ social media engagement is that they are taking advantage of social media networks to jump start their careers before they enter high school or college. Teens increase their social media profile currency value by building a strong following with thousands of likes. This currency can be used to earn free products, endorsements or cash payments from corporations seeking to tap these teen communities.

Taylor Oaklay is a good example. He created a nonsensical YouTube channel in 2007 and then built an amazing self brand around his channel. Taylor perfected his social media skills and gained a following that exceed millions on the Internet by the time he entered college. He now appears as a guest host frequently on TV shows, is a freelance reporter for MTV and conducts corporate workshops educating social media marketers on how to develop a successful social media campaign.

What teens do not understand is the motive behind these social media networks and the corporate marketing machine. “Facebook is not a benign utility” it is a for-profit company with very demanding shareholders who seek a return on their investment.

Frontline examined the great lengths corporate marketers will go to create illusion of organic buzz around special events, new movies and product launches that are targeted teens. The Hunger Games movie franchise was used as an example. In reality, the buzz around the movie was a highly detailed sophisticated social media marketing campaign. Yet to the teens, it was real and they participated in the game of resharing information to earn badges and mentions from the actors.

Our teens play a social media game “king of the mountain” with marketers, who are also pushing the boundaries to see who (teens or marketers) can create content that wins the most “likes”. The marketers know what they are doing, but do our teens realize what is really happening and how they are working for free?

Companies need teens to sell products to their peers and award this loyalty with free products and mentions online. Generation Like has no idea what “selling out means” and when asked by the Rushkoff no one knew the definition or at least they pretended not to what the phase meant.

What was missing from the Rushkoff’s documentary was a discussion on how this social media race to gain the most likes could or would have negative consequences for our teens in the future. There was no mention of what may happen from posting inappropriate images especially for young girls.

Danah Boyd a Principal Researcher for Microsoft, stated “kids today have less mobility than they have historically. The kinds of trouble that we may have had when we were running around with our friends is now taking place in a very traceable, very persistent environment. So we have to recognize that that changes the dynamics.”

As parents, we do not know the consequences or potential problems our teens will face in the future as a result of their social media activity. While being mindful of the potential consequences, creating a balance and allowing space for our teens to grow and mature is equally important.

For the past two years, I have been researching, interviewing, writing and speaking about our digital transformation and its impact on us and our kids. After repeated requests, I have written a book for parents.

“You Posted What! How to Help Your Teen Use Social Media to Gain an Advantage for College and Future Employment” is about how to help your teen use social media networks responsibly, how to take advantage of non-profit platforms to explore career options and understand the potential consequences that can occur from posting content (photos, comments, videos) online.

The book is being pre-sold via a GoFundMe campaign and will be published in May.

I’m also in the process of writing two more books in this series about digital education and careers.

No Excuses in 2014

January 9, 2014 By Tiffany Sunday

Each year during the holidays, I think of a theme or word that will define my focus for the next year.

For 2014, my theme is “No Excuses”.

As I was reading through an article over the break, the author said any time we make an excuse we are really lying to ourselves.

His comment stayed in my mind and I mentally chewed on his comment while running. How many times had I made excuses to myself and others? The more I analyzed the excuses, I realized they costed me money and wasted my time.

Excuses delay our decisions which create more problems in the long run.

Last year, I read Dr. Cloud’s “Necessary Endings” which was an enlightening book, it also made me think about my actions and excuses.

My goal for the year is to stop and think about the real reason behind the excuse then make a decision to act or not act at all. Many times we make excuses to delay other people or to avoid a confrontation.

There were many excuses surrounding this blog. I felt constrained that I could not freely express my thoughts on a range of topics. I wanted to have a blog where I could mix both my business and personal life together because that how I live.

My career and life are intertwined woven together by interesting threads of events and people. Being a small business owner, writer, and single parent everything I do is intertwined which always leads to a funny story or two.

In November, I started a blog on Google called “Just for Fun” because I made an excuse to myself that I needed a platform, a different place to write about fun topics that were not related to business. Creating another blog to my already packed schedule didn’t make sense either. I realized it was me and my internal excuses preventing me from writing what I wanted to write in this blog post.

My question to you for 2014 is what excuses both internal and external are holding you back or preventing you from doing something you really want to do?

Excuses are traps that keep us from taking action. We feel the need to delay an action or decision so we make an excuse.

Or maybe there was no decision to be made in the first place but we feel pressured from family or friends to make a decision. Maybe family habits or traits are obsolete because life is different now than when we were kids.

Whatever may be the case, excuses gain nothing and in the end are just a waste of time.

Purging Superfluous Content

November 4, 2013 By Tiffany Sunday

Every day we flood the Internet with an enormous amount of data from article postings to tweets and photos.

Most of the content we dump onto the digital highway is Internet litter; we cannot see this litter because the Internet and the data we produce is invisible.

We’ve become obsessed with stuffing the digital white space with useless words and images, as corporate brands and marketers generated content every minute of each day.

How many times have you experienced information overload?

We fear white space; it feels uncomfortable to have less information instead of more. Producing generic meaningless content is easy; working to simplify your company’s message takes time.

Peter Coughter said it best “beauty is the purgation of superfluous. Quality content occurs when everything that is superfluous is removed.”

Cutting through digital chatter requires strategic thought and the patience to take time to curate the words.

Our brains need empty white space to allow us time to think, a quiet moment to process our thoughts and solve problems.

We’ve become a society who believes more is better, creating simple effective content that speaks directly to the individual; feels out of place. Elegance is moving past purgation of superfluous words to creating content that matters and has long term value.

Beauty is achieved by telling the reader a good story that explains your purpose and why you seek their attention.

Humans remember stories; we base the majority of our buying decisions on feelings and emotions.

Rudolph Schindler was a great architectural designer and understood the importance of purging content. “We are what our environment makes us and if our environment is such as to produce excellent health, beauty, joy, and comfort, it will reflect immediately in our lives.”

We are creating our digital lives and environment. From the view of my Facebook page it is filled with mindless ads for products that I never use or would ever consider purchasing.

We click, share, and like without thinking, we repeat the same the information over and over to the point no one listens anymore.

Read, Share, or Delete?

Ask yourself; is your company stuffing customers’ email accounts with junk mail or flooding them with an endless sea of useless content? What would you personally do with the content? Would you share the information or delete it?

What is the purpose of the content? What is the message you are seeking to send to your customers? Can you define the message in two or three sentences?

Pretend you are talking to the customer – what would you say? Could the content be edited down and still maintain the story’s message?

Think about the content that you read in your personal time. What do you like to read and what stories do you feel compelled to share?

When in Doubt, Purge, and Edit Instead of Adding More.

Does your content include a hard sales pitch that could potentially turn away customers? How much time do you spend purging and editing?

Place yourself in the individual’s shoes. Think about when and where they will be reading this information and will it help solve their problem.

Curate the information and focus on what matters to your audience. Have you engaged with your customers in person or online? What are they telling you and are you listening?

Purging information and crafting a simplistic message takes time and discipline. SEO marketers have brain washed us into believing we need to add as many words as possible to our digital content. Yet, when we add useless words, we create information overload for the individuals we are seeking to reach.

Will Your Content Stand the Test of Time?

Everything changes and everything stays the same. Our products and services evolve over time, yet how we communicate with other humans remains the same. We connect through authentic stories.

Think about the content you create, if it was an art piece would it be placed in a museum? Would the story and message still resonate six months or five years from now?

Digital technology is just a tool we use to communicate and send information. What we create must have value, if not we are ust tossing more digital litter onto the Internet highway.

Your Most Important Asset Is Your Digital Reputation

August 7, 2013 By Tiffany Sunday

Digital technology is changing every aspect of our lives from how we conduct business, to securing new clients and finding a job.

Every industry including our children’s education will be impacted by digital technology.

Learning how to manage our digital transformation and understanding the importance of our digital profiles is crucial to staying relevant in the Digital Era.

Our digital profile and real life are now one, everything we have done and everything we will accomplish is digitized.

Recruiters spend hours on LinkedIn and Twitter searching for the ideal candidate. Schools and colleges are using digital profiles to review applications and determine who is accepted.

Professional and personal reputations have and always crucial in determining life’s important decisions. Digital technology has digitized our reputations for the world to see. Both good and bad posts can be viewed by everyone leaving us with less control over what others say and post.

Many believe we are diluting our personal value with each Facebook post.

Your Digital Reputation is your Golden Goose – without the Golden Goose securing new business or landing the job of your dreams will be difficult in the Digital Economy.

Be mindful about the content you post and the friends you circle because in the end – our reputation is all we have.

Related Blog Post:

Digital Profiles Have Made Resumes Obsolete

Interview with Scott Ewert on How Technology and Creativity Impacts Your Career Options

Easy Part (Writing a Book) – Hard Part (Learning the Self-Publishing Process)

July 11, 2013 By Tiffany Sunday

Since junior high I have been writing poetry, short stories and articles for local community papers. I started blogging three years ago about startups, concept development and digital technology.

My goal is to complete “You Posted What! How to Help Your Teen Use Social Media For Future Career Success” by May of 2014.

The Internet provides a unique freedom for creative individuals; we can develop and share ideas with others around the world. I am grateful for this freedom and opportunity.

Deciding to self-publish was a no-brainer since my chances of securing a publisher were slim. Secondly, my goal is to write more books in the future and knowing how to self-publish early in the process would save time and money later.

In the past six months, I’ve discovered that writing the actual book is the easier part of the process. Learning the intricacies of self-publishing has become a daunting task. Lack of consistency in information from “how-to” books and marketers has not helped either. Several friends have recently published books and were generous with advice and recommendations.

In May, I was reading about Kickstarter and begin to toss around the idea of launching a Kickstarter campaign to pre-sell the book. I’m curious about Kickstarter and would like to be part of the experience.

What I Have Learned So Far–

Writing the Actual Book

“Word” is the program of choice for many reasons, it is the most popular, easy to use and your files can be sent to editors and publishers with ease.

PressBooks is a new platform that offers the ability to write and publish an eBook using the WordPress platform. For individuals who are bloggers and already use WordPress, this is an easy program to use.

I created an account to test drive PressBooks. What I like best about platform is that you can visually see what your eBook will look like when it’s published.

Being a visual learner and thinker “seeing” the book in a digital format helped establish a visual image of the book I was writing.

Secondly, you can cut and paste from Word which is a nice feature. The down side to PressBooks is that you have been online to add content to your book. The information is stored in the cloud; therefore, you must be connected to the Internet to work on your book. There are times when I write on a notepad, scrap paper or on the laptop away from the office. Writing is a process and I always print a hard copy to edit.

Just like WordPress, you can select your book theme from a template or you can create a custom theme.

Publishers

Hyperink provides publishing services to well-known bloggers and business experts. Brad Feld and Penelope Truck have published eBooks using Hyperink’s platform. The down side is that you must be an expert or high profile blogger for Hyperink to publish your book.

Secondly, most of the book themes are very similar which makes it hard to differentiate the subject matter and the company requests that you complete your book in six weeks.

BookBaby is a unique publisher; the company was started by artists, writers and musicians as an alternative way to sell their art. When I visited with the BookBaby representative she was helpful and happy to answer my questions.

However, she was unable to provide specific information about Amazon’s policies. I thought the pricing was reasonable for the services which included registering the ISBN number and book distribution.

Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch wrote “APE – Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish a Book” for first time authors. Guy offered free copies via Google+ following the release date. The book is worth reading if you are first time author, I found some of the sections useful and skimmed through the rest of the book.

EBooks Thumbnails Matter

Two bits of advice that I heard multiple times is to budget money for a good graphic artist and editor.

For eBooks, a strong thumbnail book cover will differentiate your book from the thousands of other listed on Amazon. Second, the cover is used to market and sell your book.

Edit, Edit, Edit and Then Edit Some More

You may be an excellent writer; however, having a second set of eyes is worth the money. Behind every successful author there is a really good editor. I have written this advice twice because good grammar is crucial. I spend hours editing my blog posts and know there is still room for improvement.

Make sure you include a good editor and graphic artist in your budget. After you have spent hours working on your book, why skimp and sell your book short.

One more thought on editing, ask your business associates, family and friends to read your draft and provide honest feedback for improvements For book reviews, ask several business associates and thought leaders in your industry to review your book. These reviews will be used on the book’s Amazon profile page and in your marketing materials.

Funding – Kickstarter

Kickstarter offers a unique platform to pre-sell your book. Writers at all levels have used this platform to generate interest and sell their books. The money raised from the campaign depends on the topic matter and public interest.

Right now, I am planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign in September to pre-sell both the book. I am excited about the potential of the Kickstarter campaign and understand that I will need to market the campaign to ensure success.

Market Your Book Now

Start marketing your book before the initial draft is finished. Start building your community now. Establishing an audience early is important and will help sell your book when it published. The general consensus is to market the book about year prior to the published date.

Currently, I am in the process of securing a graphic artist to create a poster and eBook cover for the Kickstarter campaign. I will continue to share the information I learned as I work my way through the self-publishing process.