Made To Stick, a new book by Chip & Dan Heath, analyze in considerable detail what works in getting a stranger's attention and what doesn't. Most of us are savvy enough to see through cliches and amateurism these days, having been exposed to gadzillions of product pitches from every living ad-madmen in the last 50 years, so it really takes some smart design work and crafty thinking to get through our time-thickened skins. And I find this to be one of the rationales for the creation and use of bioblogs, for bioblogging as a way of grabbing someone's attention even in the fevered pitch of day-to-day competition for attention.
The Heath bros. came up with 6 essential attributes that determine how well an ad or presentation or pitch will succeed in its mission to get a moment of your time. Below are the 6 with relevant comments re bioblogging, from my own perspective, which at the moment is about the only one on the planet since I am one of the few who know what bioblogs are and are for.
1) Simplicity - A bioblog can be reduced graphically to a single powerful element, with deconstructed text.
2) Unexpectedness - Bioblogs excel at this because they are so new that no one has seen anything like them before!
3) Concreteness - A bioblog is still the bait, just as any resume is, trying to get 2 seconds to turn it into 20 minutes.
4) Credibility - If anyone believes traditional resumes carry any credibility anymore, they need counseling.
5) Emotion - Bioblogs let a subtle if not stunning image carry the water for emotional content (character at work).
6) Story - A bioblog can tell a lot more of the story about you the brand, the creative character, than action verbs.
My point is that bioblogs bring the human element into the picture, the "missing I" that disappeared from resumes some 30 years ago and still is wandering about in the lost land of the EEO and other federal mandates that scared it off in the first place. You don't need a photo (there's already way too much info about everybody in the public purview these days for my liking) but you do need a you behind the words. It can't all be about job descriptions and action verbs.
Bioblogs promote your creative character, the person in you who puts on a workplace show, but is still a real person outside the office.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Bioblogs Are Not For Everybody
Everybody's an expert these days, on whatever they choose to claim: marketing, branding, lovesex, selfing-up, traffic peakflow . . . you name it. I'm leery of all such pronouncements of deep knowledge about anything (especially my own) and smell a rat in the silo; it looks to me that there's a lot of winking and secret signalling going on, mutual backscratching, you know, "I'll help you pad your resume if you help me embellish mine . . . what do the regular folks know anyway, the peanut gallery online clickers?"
So I'm saying here that I do not claim to be an expert on anything other than myself, and that doesn't run at 100% but on a few circumspect occasions now and then, on a hit-and-miss basis mostly.
I know a lot about resumes, however, because they simply have not changed much in relation to other things since I first got involved writing them in the 70s. And I know as much as I want and need to know about business practices as played out in the panorama of America's polyglot cultural challenges, having worked at many levels from an oil field roustabout hanging out with peyote-chewing Mexicans to presenting multi-million-dollar budgets and quarterly performance reports to the CFO in the boardroom.
What I really know, though, is bioblogs. Because I invented/created/originated/first imagined them, and this was after a decade of thinking about the idea. And I was surprised that no one, not even monster.com, had thought of the idea. So I trademarked the term "bioblogs" and wrote the book and produced 100 examples of how they could look. That makes me 100 bioblogs ahead of anyone who starts the race.
But I'm not an expert on bioblogs. An authority, yes; but not an expert. Because I am trying to light the fire beneath the haystack, to create a revolution against traditional resumes and their flatness, their hollowness, their wordiness. I want really valuable people, really talented and ambitious and desirable candidates, to do something more fruitful in their job hopping/searching than promote their rare creative characters at work with mundane "job resumes." I want them to create their own exciting, visually appealing bioblogs. And I want very much to see them.
I want to see them because bioblogging is a new art form, and it's not very often that a new art form is created. It is a valid one too, and one that will allow individuals to reflect their personal styles in their compelling, personal stories, while simultaneously serving the routine function of traditional resumes: to be the bait that gets the fish.
And after I have seen a 100 bioblogs created by a 100 different people, and assess their approaches and successes or failures, I will then be on the road to being an expert. Like everything in life, one is always in the process of becoming, not just being, and so I will become an expert by watching the art form grow and evolve. But right now, I just want to see the walls come down around the HR offices and personnel screeners' computers. (I want bioblogs to jam up the works, crash the system: "Alarm! Individual detected! No keywords, just character, what what what to do?"
I expect no assistance, help, cooperation, sympathy or interest from the SOP-bound folks in the HR circles because they have a vested interest in the status quo: resumes designed to disgorge their organic matter into the vortex of recycled job descriptions mixed with swirls of academia make it easy for the honchos who screen applicants to ignore issues of creative character. Hell, most of them don't even care if the person is a man or woman, something that I find difficult to carve away from the general sense of a person. I mean, isn't that just a natural starting point? Didn't we get into that in caveman days, trying to figure out if a stranger was "like me" or "not like me," and therefor possibly "bad for me"?
The gadzillions of neutered resumes purporting to represent living characters do not do much of a job of it with their "action verbs" (and missing owners) and "keywords" (action verbs revisited). But the HR people are happy with their stacks and piles, their rote world of the seven types, and they will fight off bioblogs like some sort of virus attacking honey bees.
If we're lucky, they will eventually accede to to fact that the "best performers" should be allowed to use bioblogs, but "they are not for everybody."
I never said they were.
So I'm saying here that I do not claim to be an expert on anything other than myself, and that doesn't run at 100% but on a few circumspect occasions now and then, on a hit-and-miss basis mostly.
I know a lot about resumes, however, because they simply have not changed much in relation to other things since I first got involved writing them in the 70s. And I know as much as I want and need to know about business practices as played out in the panorama of America's polyglot cultural challenges, having worked at many levels from an oil field roustabout hanging out with peyote-chewing Mexicans to presenting multi-million-dollar budgets and quarterly performance reports to the CFO in the boardroom.
What I really know, though, is bioblogs. Because I invented/created/originated/first imagined them, and this was after a decade of thinking about the idea. And I was surprised that no one, not even monster.com, had thought of the idea. So I trademarked the term "bioblogs" and wrote the book and produced 100 examples of how they could look. That makes me 100 bioblogs ahead of anyone who starts the race.
But I'm not an expert on bioblogs. An authority, yes; but not an expert. Because I am trying to light the fire beneath the haystack, to create a revolution against traditional resumes and their flatness, their hollowness, their wordiness. I want really valuable people, really talented and ambitious and desirable candidates, to do something more fruitful in their job hopping/searching than promote their rare creative characters at work with mundane "job resumes." I want them to create their own exciting, visually appealing bioblogs. And I want very much to see them.
I want to see them because bioblogging is a new art form, and it's not very often that a new art form is created. It is a valid one too, and one that will allow individuals to reflect their personal styles in their compelling, personal stories, while simultaneously serving the routine function of traditional resumes: to be the bait that gets the fish.
And after I have seen a 100 bioblogs created by a 100 different people, and assess their approaches and successes or failures, I will then be on the road to being an expert. Like everything in life, one is always in the process of becoming, not just being, and so I will become an expert by watching the art form grow and evolve. But right now, I just want to see the walls come down around the HR offices and personnel screeners' computers. (I want bioblogs to jam up the works, crash the system: "Alarm! Individual detected! No keywords, just character, what what what to do?"
I expect no assistance, help, cooperation, sympathy or interest from the SOP-bound folks in the HR circles because they have a vested interest in the status quo: resumes designed to disgorge their organic matter into the vortex of recycled job descriptions mixed with swirls of academia make it easy for the honchos who screen applicants to ignore issues of creative character. Hell, most of them don't even care if the person is a man or woman, something that I find difficult to carve away from the general sense of a person. I mean, isn't that just a natural starting point? Didn't we get into that in caveman days, trying to figure out if a stranger was "like me" or "not like me," and therefor possibly "bad for me"?
The gadzillions of neutered resumes purporting to represent living characters do not do much of a job of it with their "action verbs" (and missing owners) and "keywords" (action verbs revisited). But the HR people are happy with their stacks and piles, their rote world of the seven types, and they will fight off bioblogs like some sort of virus attacking honey bees.
If we're lucky, they will eventually accede to to fact that the "best performers" should be allowed to use bioblogs, but "they are not for everybody."
I never said they were.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Bioblogging from your Blog
Here's what I think is the most direct and powerful way to get your bioblog across the table: put it on your blog as a pdf that can be opened and/or saved on the reader's desktop. Remember, it's graphics that generates the interest, not a photo of you, which could lead to negative reactions and possible legal ramifications. Stick with the representational image that you have chosen to signify your creative character at work. Of course, if you really want to get your mugshot into the scene (and most websites or blogs seem to prefer it), make it part of the site itself, the background, so that your focused bioblog is more "open" and "objective" in its presentation. You could even include a videolog that points to aspects of your character, experience, interests, education or world-view as encapsulated by your bioblog, posing as sort of an Instructor of Self. Have fun with it and don't be afraid to poke holes in your precious ego: interviewers love applicants with a sense of reality and a level-headed sense of humor. And since we are talking about sense, commonsense as well . . . a highly desirable trait, especially on high-pressured, tight-deadlined teamwork.
Blogs are cheap and easy tools for instant access to you as a viable brand for sale. You are the domain of your future, and there's good reason to hawk your talents: because if you don't, no one will. (Donald Trump didn't get where he is by sitting in the back of the room and wondering if he was good enough.)
By subdividing your blog's main domain (Me) into subdomains (my work ethic, my workplace know-how, my professional observations of what's needed), you can parcel out your brand's values in separate but parallel, supporting bioblogs: Me the Manager, Me the Problem Solver, Me the Social Coordinator, Me the Long-term Thinker, Me the "Think Fast" Person, and so on. Each of these subdomains can describe specific experiences at particular workplaces (the real details, for a change) that culminated in your succeeding despite the circumstances. Instead of making claims--"increased national sales 38% in 3 quarters"--try explaining what was going on and how you perceived the situation, what you did, how you handled obstacles, what kind of cooperation you go, etc. Tell the story interestingly enough and they will read it.
Given that a blog is essentially a place where a person claims to be an expert on his or her own thinking, show them that you are just that, someone who knows the ropes of how you act and react. It's one less variable for them to plug into the hole that you will fill, should you be hired.
Blogs are cheap and easy tools for instant access to you as a viable brand for sale. You are the domain of your future, and there's good reason to hawk your talents: because if you don't, no one will. (Donald Trump didn't get where he is by sitting in the back of the room and wondering if he was good enough.)
By subdividing your blog's main domain (Me) into subdomains (my work ethic, my workplace know-how, my professional observations of what's needed), you can parcel out your brand's values in separate but parallel, supporting bioblogs: Me the Manager, Me the Problem Solver, Me the Social Coordinator, Me the Long-term Thinker, Me the "Think Fast" Person, and so on. Each of these subdomains can describe specific experiences at particular workplaces (the real details, for a change) that culminated in your succeeding despite the circumstances. Instead of making claims--"increased national sales 38% in 3 quarters"--try explaining what was going on and how you perceived the situation, what you did, how you handled obstacles, what kind of cooperation you go, etc. Tell the story interestingly enough and they will read it.
Given that a blog is essentially a place where a person claims to be an expert on his or her own thinking, show them that you are just that, someone who knows the ropes of how you act and react. It's one less variable for them to plug into the hole that you will fill, should you be hired.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Reading & Writing for Rupert
The world is getting smaller and Rupert Murdoch is getting bigger. I can't escape his encircling grasp. To start off, I am an author; Harper & Row was my original publisher 30+ years ago, and they merged into HarperCollins, which Murdoch owns. I am in Murdoch's global stable, one of umpteen thousands of word-hackers (2 books, 4 editions). Before I threw my TV out on the street and got fed up with the onslaught of the juvenile, liberal "anything goes" mentality driving most marketers, I used to like to watch news shows on Fox News. (Murdoch's) My satellite provide was DirectTV. (Murdoch's) I escaped both when I got rid of the TV (which I do not regret one iota). I get my daily dose of hard/soft news from talk radio shows and the web and by reading every evening The Wall Street Journal. And you know, of course, that Murdoch just bought the WSJ.
As this has been happening, a large contingent of mourning doves has been gathering in the trees and on the fences of my goat field. I mean a lot of them, starting with a few and at last count, some 33 of them lined up near my garden. Hitchcockian. I don't necessarily think that they are related to this Murdoch business, but who the heck knows? I wonder if he's planning on going into the seed or goat milk business?
As this has been happening, a large contingent of mourning doves has been gathering in the trees and on the fences of my goat field. I mean a lot of them, starting with a few and at last count, some 33 of them lined up near my garden. Hitchcockian. I don't necessarily think that they are related to this Murdoch business, but who the heck knows? I wonder if he's planning on going into the seed or goat milk business?
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