Elizabeth Charnock - E-Habits: What You Must Do to Optimize Your Professional Digital Presence

What You Must Do to Optimize Your Professional Digital Presence

BRAND YOURSELF WITH

Strategic Social Networking

Proactive E-mail Practices

An Impressive Online Profile

ELIZABETH CHARNOCK

Copyright 2010 by Elizabeth Charnock. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-174055-5

MHID: 0-07-174055-4

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I MUST START off by thanking Will Schwalbe, who first suggested that I write this book. He also introduced me to the incomparable Eleanor Jackson, my literary agent, without whom this book certainly never would have been written.

The book comes from my experience and that of the entire Cataphora team over the eight years and counting since we founded the company. Everyone who has helped the companyemployees, advisers, customers, partners, and our many supportershas thus contributed to the book. In particular, Ron Weissmans ability to capture complex reality in a simple phrase was invaluable to me at various points along the way.

A team of Cataphora volunteers performed research and made many suggestions. Rick Janowski brought his organizational skills and humor to bear on coordinating the different aspects of the project and was indispensable to the effort. Most prominent among the volunteers were Penni Sibun, Lizzie Allen, Ken Bame, Karl-Michael Schneider, and Philip Wang. Curtis Thompson, Markus Morgenroth, and David John Burrowes produced the screenshots; Curtis was also responsible for the overall coordination of graphics and the books website. Other contributors included Keith Schon, Raj Premkumar, Steve Roberts, Mariko Kawaguchi, Jeremy Linden, and Joshua Minor. Many people in the Cataphora engineering organization contributed to the companion software and are credited there.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Matt Welsh (and Matt Welsh), Chris Lunt, and Curtis Jackson for agreeing to let us share their stories.

Id like to thank my editors at McGraw-Hill, Emily Carleton and Tania Loghmani, for their efforts. Under the leadership of Caroline Kawashima, our extended team at Cataphoras PR firm, Racepoint Group, was a sound and much appreciated source of advice. Thanks also to the Monaco Media Forum and all the staff at the Bagni di Pisa in Italy, where portions of this book were written.

Lastly, while it may be unoriginal, Id like to acknowledge my friends and family for supporting me in a variety of different ways during this effort, including not seeing me for even longer stretches of time than usual.

To all of these, and others too numerous to mention, I offer my heartfelt thanks.

TODAY, MANY MILLIONS of people like you and me generate at least 10 different types of electronic data before our second cup of coffee. It starts from the moment we use a card key to gain access to our office and continues as we listen to our voice mail, respond to that first e-mail, and so on. Most of these actions are just minutiae, about as memorable as where we ate lunch two weeks ago. Nor are these actions widely visible the way they once were, back when office workers spent most of their days interacting directly rather than hunched over their keyboards. Yet, paradoxically, the digital breadcrumbs these actions leave behind can accurately capture individual behavior in more detail than ever beforenot to mention permanently.

The trail doesnt stop when the workday is over. In fact, for some, thats really when the action starts. Once were out of the office, we can tweet away to our hearts content or spend hours commenting on all of our friends Facebook updates without fear of getting busted by the boss. Nevertheless, the second paradox of the digital breadcrumb trail is the silent, often terrifying way it demolishes the traditional boundaries between our personal and professional liveswhile at the same time erecting even more impenetrable barriers.