John Zeus’ Digital Reputation Management

February 7, 2014

I’d like to share an audio podcast created for my workshop session on Digital Reputation Management, the first podcast I ever recorded. It was a beneficial experience working on this project with Julian Gobert, who created the sound and music.

Listen to podcast, length: 4:46

Podcast Script

I’m here with John Zeus, the content expert of the digital reputation management and social network session, one of the essential skills workshops featured in the wiki (an online collaborative content sharing platform for a YMCA program). In this podcast we try to summarize the highlights and objectives of this session and help prepare facilitators for its delivery.

The estimated time to deliver this session is 5 hours including all discussions, activities and debriefs. Hello Zeus,..Hi Julian.

Can you tell me the main objective of this session?

The main objective is for participants to be made aware of and manage their online digital reputation, and “digital dirt”, to determine if it is a professional or damaging presence, and to protect and maintain a positive online reputation. This session will be a useful tool and resource for participants in their existing placement as well as their future career endeavours.

What is the definition of Online Digital Reputation?

An online reputation is the perception that one has on the Internet based on their digital footprint. This is also known as a web shadow or net rep. Digital footprints accumulate through all of the content shared, feedback provided and information that you create and is created about you online.

Tell me a little bit about the session itself and what it entails?

*This is a very interactive session. It requires the use of a computer lab or laptops for each student with internet access, and focuses on Youtube, Facebook Twitter and Linked In. The key to delivering a successful session is to have enough time to complete all of the activities, and to allow ample time for debrief and discussion. This session allows a lot of freedom for the facilitator to launch different discussions catering to the specific needs of the group. The facilitator leads the discussion but is encouraged to allow relevant points of departure.

The session opens with the Did You Know (4.0) video featured on Youtube. This video focuses on the growing importance of online technology and media resources compared to traditional sources. The exponential growth of online technology further solidifies the need for online reputation management as it becomes the “go to” source for any and all of your personal information.

Can you tell me about the various activities involved in the session?

There are many different activities in this session. Participants interview each other to find out positive and negative social media experiences and share these experiences with the group. They also google themselves to find what information about them is currently online.

Participants also go through a mock online profile of a fictional girl named “Amanda”. First showing the “real Amanda” and next showing her online profile with damaging information that doesn’t reflect well on her and could be a detriment to her activities at school or hamper her chances of finding employment. The focus of this activity is to fix her online profile in a way that will still reflect who “Amanda” is (highlighting her sports, scholastic achievements, and personal goals)while improving her online digital reputation. With the tools used to fix Amanda’s profile, participants are then asked to go into their own social networking profiles (on Facebook and Myspace) and clean them up.

The final activity has participants creating an active professional LinkedIn profile. They google themselves to find their new LinkedIn profile. This is another way to establish a positive online presence.

Why do they need to have an online presence?

Contrary to popular opinion, having no online presence could actually be detrimental in your job search. Employers may see this as a case of “they must have something to hide” . It is becoming more and more of an expectation from employers that you will have an online presence. So in this regard, having a limited, but professional online presence is better than having no presence at all. Let me add that this session has been beta-tested with youth interns and we’ve had some great feedback.

They enjoyed the session, and felt that it not only prepared them for their career search but also for life.

Okay thanks for your time Zeus.

Thank you.

This concludes the podcast for digital reputation management and your social network.

More feedback on this workshop during beta-testing:

“This workshop not only prepared me for my career but also for life.” – Sarah, Youth Participant in St. John’s NL

“Great that there are opportunities and workshops today to learn about the modern technology of our generation. The workshop was very informative and taught me new things about internet privacy and networking. I had never heard of LinkedIn before and feel like it will be very useful for me in the future. You were a great teacher and overall it was a great experience. Thank you for sharing and being so easy going. Thanks again Zeus.” – Matt, Youth Participant in London, ON

Questions:

Usually the best way to engage learners at the beginning of a workshop is to ask question as part of an opening discussion. Here’s a few opening questions for this topic. Try asking yourself, go ahead….

What is net rep? What is a web shadow?
What’s your net rep?
What is digital dirt?
How much digital dirt is out there?
Can you find digital dirt on yourself?
Is Facebook a positive or negative thing? Why? How?
Have you searched your name online?
Do you think having an online presence is essential?
Do you think having no online presence is beneficial?
Do you have a profile on TWITTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN?
Any one who does not have a FACEBOOK profile?
How can you clean up your digital dirt?

Super Bowl: Brands Use Social And React To Power Outage

February 4, 2013

1 Comment

Tide was the first to react when the power went out.

Brand Engagers are discovering that many of us watching the Super Bowl and other major events on our big screen TV’s at home are also surfing online using our iPads and digital devices. The “double screen” as it’s known has penetrated our media consumption habits. There were 24 million tweets on Twitter during the Super Bowl!

It was a great game, one for the history books. The Baltimore Ravens edged out a 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers to win the 2013 Super Bowl. Right at the beginning of the 3rd quarter there was a power outage. For 35 minutes Sunday, the Super Bowl ground to a halt.

What left me impressed was how quickly Social Media reacted to the blackout as marketing teams were empowered to act! Tide was the first to react posting the image above on Twitter. The Oreo team posted the image below on twitter shortly after. It was retweeted about 11,000 times during the game!

The Oreo team posted this on twitter shortly after.

The clever adds were also posted on their company Facebook pages receiving many comments from fans. I’d like to share with you 10 replies from Tide’s timely Facebook post:

Impressed! Very clever and so timely. Well done
wow!! how did you know??
Impressively quick- tide marketing on the ball
Whoever came out with that idea should get a promotion or at least a raise. I am very serious as a businessman I can tell you that is good on the fly thinking at a management level. Great marketing, thumbs up, get your promotion!
AWESOME…made me laugh!
Awesome response and timing! Only the best marketing from the best company!!
good response for the blackout.
excellent working in the superbowl! Did Tide cause the lights to go out???
Hilarious! Somebody was really “working it!”
Best Ad Of The Night!

Source: Twitter, Facebook | John Zeus

Keeping Up With The Millennials

February 3, 2013

1 Comment

Advertising: Studies shows 13 to 32 year olds are less responsive to TV ads

Here are some new findings by comScore about how to advertise to Generation Y.

Generation Y, or the Millennials are easily distracted by the myriad of things vying for their attention. Advertisements don’t make much of an impression on them. “It’s just too darn easy for them to get distracted”, notes ComScore.

Keeping up with Millennials can be difficult especially if you are trying to sell them a product. You can find yourself complaining about “kids these days,” or you scratch your head at the music you hear blasting the earbuds of the young person in front of you in line at Starbucks.

Millennials are the generation born in the 80s or 90s, or anyone between the ages of 13 to 32 years old. Millennials are younger than Generation Xers, which were born between 1965 and 1980. This generation is also called “Echo Boomers,” as they’re typically children of Baby Boomers.

According to ComScore, Millennials’ defining characteristics are comfort with new technology and cultural diversity, being accustomed to on-demand access to entertainment, continual stimulation and extreme multitasking. It’s important to note that most Millennials have grown up with computers in the home and in the classroom, not knowing life without a cell phone.

Not surprisingly, the research found that Millennials are less susceptible to television advertising.

Millennials have also been found to have higher inclination than other generations to actually retain impressions from TV advertising. So it seems its hard to impress Gen Y-ers, but once they are impressed, they’re loyal.

Overall they show themselves to be generally less interested and more difficult to connect with. Millennials also harder to impress, convince and entertain. Research shows that digital advertising performs better with Millennials than TV. They’re more price-conscious because they are less accustomed to disposable income.

There some encouraging results…

In the above figure, we can see that while the somewhat reduced attention span of Millennials makes for decreased immediate information recall, they have a higher delayed recall than other demographics.

Like other age demographics, Millennials were found to be affected by creativity in advertising. They’re also engaged in content they have decided they’re interested in, both in television and digital mediums. “Engagement” is an important aspect in advertising!

So for advertisers set with the task of actually manufacturing this “engagement,” go creative. If you happen to tap into something that catches Millennials’ attention, you’re likely to have very loyal customers.
🙂

Adapted by: John Zeus, Source: comScore, Image Credit: comScore

Learning Can Have A Leading Edge With Wiki Collaboration

October 4, 2012

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Paradigm Shift…

Always at the cusp of transition from one age to a new one the old systems no longer work and there does need to be a paradigm shift. We can see this in institutions whose structures are crumbling – world economies and banking for example.

The education/learning systems are probably one of the last systems to crumble by their lack of addressing the realities of what participants are facing today. It did not happen overnight that is for sure. I watch my 8 year old nephew learn how to play chess on his iPod touch and breeze through the many games that are available. His mind is fast and he can do at least 5 things at once. We are all going through this huge transition and certainly collaboration has come to the forefront – social networks, forums, instant chats, skype etc. We are all feeling the need to collaborate on some level and share our experiences of what is happening in our world.

I guess my question is how to assess one’s competencies if the entire learning process is based on collaboration, because in the end, when someone is applying for a job, it is based on the skills that they individually bring to that position. And yes teamwork is becoming very important (emotional IQ, etc) but I don’t think it is realistic to level the playing field so to speak. Or conversely, maybe everybody needs help in finding their right place and we don’t do enough of that in the educational system.

All the new technologies like wikis and cloud computing in general as well as the ones i mentioned above all indicate a desire to collaborate on some level. But all contribution is not equal so we need new measuring systems. We have a long ways to go for sure and it takes visionaries like Sir Ken Robinson to open the gates wide. And by the way if you do a google on transition from industrial age to information age, there is lots to discover! And it is reassuring to know that some of our communities can be on the leading edge of this paradigm shift with cloud frenzy free, user friendly Wiki collaboration.

This video animate will engage further discussion on the changing education paradigms.

YouTube video description: This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.

Why Wiki? Collaborate and Accelerate Productivity

April 24, 2012

4 Comments

10 Best Reasons To Use A Wiki

This video on YouTube provides “a look at 10 reasons how a wiki can connect teams within companies, helping them get more done, together.” (Description from YouTube)

Source: Atlassian Get your own wikiWiki’s allow for asynchronous collaboration and communication between groups of people. The excerpt below was adapted from Atlassian and is used for YMCA staff and volunteers participating in the Wiki Course. John Zeus is the author of the Wiki Course for YMCA’s Enterprise Wikis.

Why Wiki?

Confluence is a wiki used by more than half of Fortune 100 companies to connect people with the content and co-workers they need to get their jobs done, faster. Connect your entire business in one place online to collaborate and capture knowledge – create, share, and discuss your documents, ideas, minutes, and projects.

Driving collaboration at 11,800 companies world-wide

Atlassian Confluence wiki collaboration software is trusted by over 11,000 companies world-wide

#1 Get More Done, Together

Get the best people on the right tasks and produce better overall results by letting everyone contribute.

Break down information silos between teams, departments, and individuals – it’s crowd-sourcing for your organization.

#2 Anyone Can Contribute

Anyone can put content online, quickly and securely – just click ‘Edit’ and start typing.

A rich content editor does the work for you with Autocomplete, Autoformatting, Autoconvert, and shortcuts for everything.

#3 Connect People and Content

Bringing the right people into the work and discussions taking place in Confluence is easy.

Share content in seconds and @mention teammates in any page, blog post, or comment.

#4 Capture Knowledge, Forever

Capture the tacit knowledge of your co-workers, often trapped in email, in Confluence where it’s never lost.

Instant and familiar, engage everyone and encourage collaboration with Quick Comments and Likes.

#5 Discover What’s Popular

Confluence makes sure you won’t miss another important conversation again.

With a live ‘Popular’ content stream and weekly email summaries you’ll never lose touch of what’s trending in your company.

Why Wiki Content Discovery with Activity Streams

#6 Find Content, Fast

Quick Navigation and Search makes sure you find what you’re looking for, fast.

Start typing and watch Confluence suggest pages, blogs, files, and people.

#7 Keep Private Parts, Private

Confluence meets the demands of the enterprise environment by keeping your content safe and secure.

Permissions at the Global, Space, and Page level give you the flexibility to decide exactly who can view and edit content.

Why Wiki SharePoint and Office Integration

#8 Connect to Microsoft

Combine powerful free-form content creation and collaboration with the document management and workflow strengths of SharePoint and Office.

Get up-and-running quickly with out-of-the-box integration with Active Directory for user management and authentication.

#9 Easy to Customize & Brand

Create customized designs and brand Confluence to match your corporate style.

Expand your audience with complete branding, advanced design tools, drag-and-drop layouts, navigation, and drafts.

#10 Extend with Add-ons

Customize Confluence with themes, application connectors, content importers, and more.

Browse the Atlassian Plugin Exchange and find add-ons that extend functionality and connect Confluence to other enterprise tools.

A Wiki that Works for Everyone

Source: Atlassian Get your own wiki

Job Searching With Social

April 3, 2012

2 Comments

These findings are according to Career Enlightenment and were compiled in 2011. They may be outdated in some areas and differ between demographic regions but certainly use of Social Media is growing and becoming an essential skill.

How Useful is Pinterest, Really? | RICG

February 24, 2012

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Shared: How Useful is Pinterest, Really? | RICG.

What Is Social Media?

February 8, 2012

0 Comments

I like this wikipedia description of social media and wanted to share it with you. I’m developing a series of automated Zen PowerPoint videos for youth participants in a YMCA Internship program. I have great content and images for the course through collaborations with colleagues but I’m very much an amateur in video and sound editing. I decided to give it a try when the idea came up. My intent is for youth participants to to become knowledgeable in using blogging platforms and social media for their job search, self employment and networking opportunities. It’s been fun working on this project. Social media offerings to our youth are I believe essential to setting them up for success long after they have completed their internship.
I’m excited to roll this out to a small group of post secondary grads soon and get their feedback. – jZ 2012.02.08